Help me, i fear i've made a big mistake

[Jeffrobertmarshall]

I was (note was) at cranwell on 209 IOT doing officer training before my pilot training, anyway to cut a long story short I left. At the time I didn't feel like life in the RAF was right. In hindsight I think I was a little hasty in my departure. So basically i gave up my chance of RAF pilot. I know stupid, idiot, fool etc...... I'm in the CTC selection process at the moment got stage 3 soon, realistically not expecting to get accpted onto the wings scheme . Can anyone give me some adive as the best thing I can do? Think I've kinda shot myself in the foot with the RAF pilot thing, but I certianly don't want that to be the end of my flying days!

[kellykelpie]

Hi. Look, I made exactly the same decision to depart from the RAAF during officer training. I don't know what CTC is but it need not be the end of your flying days.

I went for airline interviews a few years later. The best advice I can give is just be honest and tell them you left. At my first interview I tried to cover it up by saying that I chose not to pursue the airforce after being accepted (making it sound like I didn't start). I got a bit of a grilling because it obviously made me uncomfortable.

Years later I went for Qantas interviews and just said "I didn't like it so I left". This went down much better.

So you left. Aviation careers are an evolution. Good luck.

I have just read the CTC post and now know what it is. My advice is to say I want to be an airline pilot not a RAF pilot. I can understand you thinking this may stop you in the future because I felt exactly the same way. Believe me - it will not unless you let it.

[pilotarosa]

I left the airforce..not uk one......and it hasn't been the end of my aviation career but the beginnig....just be always honest about it!

[Speed Twelve]

I was in the same boat years ago. Was going through 125 IOT for GD/P, got backcoursed and then VW'd in order to go through BA cadet selection. Passed that, got class 1 medical and uniform fitting, then got binned at the 11th hour due to the BA final review board deciding I was a training risk due to having jacked-it at Cranwell. Contemplated returning to IOT a couple of months later, and OASC confirmed there would be no problem doing this (they were even going to put me back on the same sqn, possibly with the same Flt Cdr), but in the end I decided to go to uni instead.

Went to uni, got a degree, got back into civvy flying. After a couple of years at uni I started to have regrets, like yourself, and contacted the RN with a view to joining the Fleet Air Arm as a pilot, as well as rejoining the RAF as a nav. Both services said 'forget it mate'. I was 24, there were barrelloads of young keen 18 year-olds with mega aptitude scores out there, and so there was no way they were going to entertain me having already binned things 3 years before. I'd had my chance.

Now, (15 years later!), anytime that my decision to leave the RAF is brought up at an interview I can truthfully say that I was too immature to handle the pace of IOT at the time, and that it wasn't for me.

I have had a successful civvy flying career for quite a few years now, and looking back, I rarely regret leaving IOT, except for the odd twinge when I see a fast jet snotting down a valley somewhere ( and realising that one of the blokes I knew from IOT was synchro lead in the Reds a couple of years ago...). If you want to fly aeroplanes for a living, go for it. The Mil isn't the be-all and end-all, but if you are thinking of going back in, do it now!

ST

[Crosswind Limits]

If you felt that the RAF wasn't for you then perhaps it isn't. Why are you having regrets, because of what people are saying or perhaps thinking? Only you can make that decision in the end.

Go with your gut feeling and not with what you think you should do and you'll be fine.

Good luck.

[Jeffrobertmarshall]

Sopke to OASC at cranwell and i can re-apply not sure how far I'll get with that, I'm 24 now, but i guess we'll see. Got CTC next week so fingers crossed for that, realistically that's the dream ticket, for me and a lot of others unfortunately.

[Speed Twelve]

JRM,

I see from your similar thread in Mil Aircrew that you're considering going back into the RAF in a ground branch. What's more important to you, having a commission or flying?? If it's the latter then why not push for aircrew only at OASC again? When I did selection I told the board that I would go pilot or bust, wouldn't have considered nav, never mind a ground branch. It worked, but recruitment at the time was a lot healthier (late 80's).

How long ago was it that you left Cranditz? The powers that be seem to want you to do OASC again, have you tried pushing to get straight back to IOT in your original branch choice without doing selection a second time? They're going to want lots of assurances that you're not going to VW again, though.

Good luck anyway!

ST

[Mr Pink]

Mr Marshall

I always wanted to be a harrier pilot and even though I proved my worth in my UAS gaining fast jet grades, vacancies and timing were not on my side - May 2002 to be exact.

I am now 26 and still think what if, if they had just given me a chance. However, since I have almost completed an engineering doctorate, bought a house just before prices went stupid and am a father! Which actually makes me realise not joining the forces was a good thing.
I would probably be based in a front line squadron by now without having seen my daughter!

In comparison, my friend who joined two years before I graduated from uni called me a few weeks ago. He joined when the RAF had a major pilot shortage a few years back and because of this they lowered the pass grades for pilot entry and therefore many people got in. He was streamed fast jet but then moved to rotary at short notice due to a shortage of helicopter pilots! He was then moved again to muti engine and now is a multi rated pilot. However, he has just been grounded for five years due to cut backs and may never fly in the RAF again!

He is fed up and actually said he wishes he had followed in my footsteps.
My point is that you left for a reason, you weren't happy with the military lifestyle during IOT, what do you think it would be like in the middle of the desert, flying sorties over hostile countries whilst they fire S-A-Ms at you (It happens I know a F3 pilot currently in the gulf!)!

I asked an airline pilot friend why he didn't join the RAF? He replied ' The Eurofighter has a top speed of around 1300mph at altitude but SAMs fly twice as fast. You do the maths'!

Theres more to life than being a number!

Goodluck:ok:

[Frank Drebin]

Dear Mr Pink,

Having read a few of your self-glorifying posts now, I am sick to death of your attitude and ill-informed opinions.

I have also read Mosspigs reply to you in another thread and have to say that I agree fully with what was said.

Having been a bursar member of a UAS myself, I find your attitude to be arrogant and unrealistic.

Let's look at it simply, if you really had proved your worth as a harrier pilot, do you really think the RAF would just offer you an engineer job straight away? No.

Don't you think they may have offered you rotary or multi if you really were that good and had such a good average? Yes.

Also, I am a little confused as how you actually managed to prove your worth as a harrier pilot by completing the UAS training programme. I realise that technically, having good marks suggests that the pilot in question is of the high calibre required, but that is only a measure of current abilities. While you, apparently, excelled at the UAS, you are misguided and big-headed to assume that this means you had the ability to continue this level of achievement through-out the rest of the training programme.

As far as I can remember, in 2002, the RAF were not massively overloaded with pilots and I was told by numerous sources that they were in fact anywhere up to 20% down on pilots at that time.

I think that it is about time that you accepted the truth.

You have not proved your worth as a harrier pilot.

You were rejected by both the RAF and the Navy.

Stop telling yourself, and more importantly everyone on this forum, that you were so close. The number of people who complete EFT and do not make it as fast jet pilots I imagine is rather large, so this in no way proves anything.

Did you really 'complete sorties' in a hawk? Or did you sit in the back and do as you were told? You arrogant so and so.

If your flying ability is all that you make it out to be, please explain to me, and everyone else, why you were rejected by two armed forces. I can only assume that they do not hold your UAS results in such high regard as you do, and that the rest of your character as an officer, leader and so on are inadequate.

Please give actual harrier pilots some credit that they are not just capable of flying a grob well, they are in fact more than proficient at flying one of the most challenging aircrafts in the RAF and Navy, but also have the qualities to lead as pilots and officers, and please do not assume that they were all in the right place at the right time and were lucky with recruiting numbers.

I cannot see how you are in any position to give advice to anyone on this particular forum and should perhaps find a forum which considers conspiracy theories.

I am more than looking forward to your reply, and hope to enjoy the arrogance and utter bulls**t that I have come to expect from you.

Cheers,

Frank

PS - You imply, when you say that your friend wished he had followed in your footsteps, that you made some conscious decision on what happened.

You did not.

You were rejected.

Twice.

He was not.

Move.

On.

[headyheights]

Frank Drebin.

What the hell is your problem! I have just come on to this forum for a casual browse and thanks to you I have now been put in a bad mood by your harsh opinions.

This post was about marshall who has left IOT and not sure what to do. It is not about you venting your frustration on someone else. If you are going to contribute to this post just offer supporting words to the guy who started the post and nothing else.

Lets all try and get on shall we!

[Mr Pink]

Frank

Nice to meet you too!

Obviously you are talking from experience, hence the remark about the RAF at least offering me a rotary or multi position if I had such a good average! You sound like a man with Cranwell Officer selection experience so please write a bit about yourself.

When I left the UAS I had a high average, which my ex-harrier pilot instructor with over 10k hrs informed me was enough to get me onto fast jets, maybe harriers!!!
Please read my thread carefully, by saying I proved my worth, I was implying I had hopefully proved my worth for a fast jet streaming.

Please do not twist my thread, I know how hard it is to get onto harriers, and as I said in response to another, I really admire them! I would say that its the most challenging aircarft to fly in RAF and RN wouldn't you!

My post on this forum was simply my advice to someone who thought had made a big mistake! I responded to his thread with my own opinion, which he probably ignored anyway.
This is a wannabe forum and I do think I am entitled to give my opinion and advice to other wannabes who might have less or more experience than myself.

You are implying that you know what went on during my selection, which is out of order and you are not in the position to comment. I will however, accept your opinion!

regards

P.S. In my opinion if I were you I would put more effort into your own life rather than other peoples:ok:

[scroggs]

While Mr Pink's backwards-looking glasses are probably putting something of a rose-pink tinge on his abilities and missed prospects in the RAF, there is no need for the kind of aggressive, antagonistic rudeness displayed by Frank Drebin.

People will always attempt to put the best gloss they can on missed opportunities and past regrets; it's human nature. Who knows, at this distance, what Mr Pink might have achieved had he been accepted by the RAF? However, the RAF decided to decline the advantage of his talents, and so we'll never know. His point that one never knows what the future holds, in or out of the RAF, is a perfectly reasonable one.

Equally, Frank's point that it is somewhat disengenuous to suggest that you would have been a Harrier pilot if it hadn't been for the RAF's short-sightedness at not selecting you is quite correct, if phrased more than a little intemperately. After all, we might all have been astronauts if life hadn't been unkind to us at just the moment when that particular prospect may have opened up...

Mr Pink, you are not, nor have you ever been, an RAF pilot. Do not make the mistake of thinking that those who made it to Harriers in other years are or were less good pilots than you might have been. You have no real idea what the minimum standards are now or were at any time in the past, and it is misleading (and somewhat insulting) to suggest that any individual who got into the RAF at a time when they were in greater need of pilots is or was of a lower standard than you were. Nor were you ever subject to the intensity of fast-jet training, with its high drop-out rate - which is not necessarily related to ability as assessed at UAS.

That said, there was no need for Frank's attitude, and I think we'd all be grateful if a little more tolerance and politeness was shown. After all, I don't have to let you in here at all...

Scroggs

[BoraBora007]

Scroggs - I think your should take your own advice. I have seen you go off on a few people for little reason many times in the past. In fact, when I posted a new topic a few years ago, my first time on pprune, which had been asked before, I got such a toe-ending off you I never used that username again.lol. :ok:

[justanotherflyer]

Jeff,

Further addressing your own question, rather than the tangents which are erupting on this thread:

In hindsight I think I was a little hasty in my departure.

You weren't hasty. Don't torture yourself unnecessarily.

You had the information, and the knowledge of your own circumstances at the time, relevant to make a difficult decision. You did so and stuck with it, in spite of it involving turning down an attractive opportunity.

All I can say is, bravo! You sound like a responsible adult who is in charge of his own life, and can make a hard decision. That's good pilot material. There is nothing to fear about mentioning this in future interviews.

I confidently predict at more than one point in your career someone who took the alternative route which was open to you will whisper "wish I'd done the same as you".

Good luck.

[Timeout]

You would be surprised how many ex-RAF guys there are on the CTC Wings course!