Fareastdriver and
[email protected],
Alas while I take your point, you guys always looked far more comfortable and relaxed and dressed far more sensibly for work, I didn't fail or get chopped so made it all the way through to FJ. Sorry, cheap jibe and firmly tongue in cheek!
But you may indeed have a point. IF I had stayed in after my second tour, and that was a big IF, then I may well have considered Rotary. It looked more interesting and involved, and you always seemed more of a part of what you were doing in terms of effort and end result, rather than merely whooshing by in a flash and disappearing over the far horizon.
I was destined to convert to the Jaguar (heaven forbid!) or go AD with my existing fleet had I decided to stay, and I was still a little agin the AD folks after my experiences of many a QFI at Valley who had warned us against the Lightning (who on earth wants to blast off, fly in circles with your head stuck in a rubber bucket for 20 mins, hope you don't catch fire, and land again in a fuel driven panic HOPEFULLY on a runway and not the North Sea) and then of course we all feared going Vulcan, as one entire 228 OCU course around the time did when Spey problems grounded the fleet for a time. WE all wanted the new shiney beasts of Phantom, Harrier and Buccaneer, and when I was training RW was a tiny part of what we could look forward to, and even then we'd have had to fail at some point to get it, I got what I wanted, then.