Announced my preference for multis on (pretty much) day 1 of Finingley.

"Attitude Problem" appeared many, many times on reports thereafter (may not have been 100% related to that wish), including from a JP pilot instructor who asked whether I wanted F3s or GR1s - C-130 was NOT the answer he wanted. Didn't speak to me for the rest of the (thankfully short) sortie, or anytime thereafter (until I met him when he was a trainee co on VC-10s. Looked a bit sheepish, can't think why...)

Streaming interview post basic JPs was a bollocking, during which the Wingco forgot to tell me I got what I wanted. Had to knock on his door, after it slammed shut behind me, to ask!

During ANTS streaming I was told I was too lazy to go Nimrod or 10s, so got what I wanted then too. Helped that I could drink my instructors under the table (attitude problem resolved).

Sorry, nav input on 'pilot thread'.

I'm sure that 'the exigencies of the Service' will trump all else, though there must be many fewer alternatives today than when I graduated from ANS in 1965. When our Course Commander came back from his visit to London to announce postings, there was enormous surprise to hear that two of our number were going to Javelins. No Navs had gone that way in ages - but the post-UDI deployment to Zambia had changed everything. As things turned out, events changed things again and they ended up on very different types. At that time, I think we all were able to express a type preference, and the chap with top marks got what he wanted, provided there was a slot available.

Going a little further back, and I stand to be corrected on this, but I seem to recall that officers in the GD Branch could expect to follow a 'balanced career' during which changes in role would be considered as entirely normal. 'Fast Jets' and the like did not exist at that time and, having graduated to Wings standard, the expectation was that you should be capable of operating in all current roles.

ICM, re-role changes and types, not as far as I could see as those selected for the V-Force were passed from Air Sec to Bomber Command for 5 years or 2 tours minimum.

I managed three roles but PMA drew the line at a 4th :)

I think the true GD fast track actually had few tours with air officers often having barely 2000 hours. I dont know what Craig had but as OC 35 he aimed at a 1000 hours and failed by just 10. According to Wiki he went from Hunters to Vulcans with a tour on SAM which would not have done a lot for his flying hours. He would appear to have done a limit sqn cdr tour having started as a flt cdr 18 months as OC. After Vulcans, from which I can guess he would have only had around 2000 hours became OC Akrotiri where he certainly flew with all Vulcan crews and no doubt the C130 and WW but I would hazard less than 3000 total hours.

This was in line with USAF General officers with often less than 2,200 hours.

If you want to get on as a GD officer in the RAF the last thing you do is fly aeroplanes.

FED hence Specialist Aircrew cf General Duties (Cranditz)

A chum of mine was most distressed when after his advanced flying course on the Vampire (???), he was sent to Gaydon to the Victor OCU. He had visions of flying the Lightning!


Of course in the 60's the cream were sent to the V Force (it was very much the tip of the sword in those days).


I was told later that the FJ chaps got a bit upset that all the best candidates were going V Force and so later (in the 70's I believe) a quota also went fast jet and the Harrier (I am told) is where they mostly ended up first.

"Is it random selection, or based on assessment scores? Or are you asked to give your preferred Aircraft type" - None of the above I suspect. Professional assesment of capability across the board will feature highly in selecting and grading modern airframe directional operatives. Gone are the days that a bloke with two wooden legs can bludgeon his way in to first line fighters. There's definitely a major external influence to selection these days IMHOP.

Smudge:ok:

Smudge, though if your heart isn't in it . . .

By the mid-60s the V-force was shedding copilot who didn't cut it for captaincy. One came back while on his punishment tour, he was a FAC with a driver and comma man and ear to ear grin. Others went to flt Sims.

One, and I always thought he was shafted, was eased out. He was an artist with polystyrene and hot wire and was joed with making superb, large sized, unit crests. He was off so long he failed a check ride on the sqn, did a short refresher IIRC, but never got back flying.

But there have also been some who worked the oracle. Just good enough to pass but not good enough for a plum and finished up on trucks as they wanted - high risk strategy though.

Depends what you mean by external?

Representatives from each of the streams are present and have an input so I guess they could be classed as external. The number of required slots in each stream will be known. Each candidate has their reports assessed and recommendations scrutinised. The candidates preference is also noted.

Then they toss a coin! :}

Other factors apart from OCU capacity is the number of retreads taking up slots and the willingness of the receiving force to accept dilution of experience. Of course with shrinkage and only two FJ types there is less opportunity to pick and choose.

Holds, while expensive, can be used to regulate the flow to the front line.

In about 1970 a newly qualified pilot was sent out to Changi in Singapore to hold until his OCU came up.

Three months flying TT Meteors that were older than he was.

Like our current Tonka stick monkeys?

FB, sign of the times. The oldest aircraft I flew in we're Anson about 25, Lancaster 24, Shackleton 24 and Dominie 25. I first flew in the Dom when it was about 2 yrs old and used to fly for more than 3hr30.

I'm tiptoeing on broken glass here, but whatever ...

As part of my job, I used to run the ATC Supervisors Course, which I initiated. intended to give young ATCOs a bit of a kick as they moved from just looking at the scope as 'producers' to actually managing the operation.

I got an old buddy from Staff College [then in IFS] come along to give an aircrew perspective to our people, who were on the bottom rung of an actual career. He got his DSO for something else, later on ... :ok:

Anyway, he used to ask the Course "Which pilots give you the most problems?" After a not-surprising response from the majority, which I had experienced on the shop floor in ATC, he then gave the Course "The way the system worked" for FJ aircrew and others, much of which I recognise from up-Thread comments.

It was very enlightening, quite detailed, and gave our young people a slight inkling of how best to deal with the various voices coming out of their headsets.

Very simple for me. At FTS I met my instructor in the bar. After buying him two beers he casually asked "What do you want to fly young man?" Without really thinking about it I replied "Helicopters Sir" Mel looked at me over the top of his beer and with clenched teeth said "No student of mine goes to helicopters!"

So that was it. Decided over a beer!

EFT musings: rumour and myth
 

Always thought it was a triple combo. The detail below is based on rumour and myth banded around in the crew room at EFT....

We thought selection was made on:

Category 1. Slots available (primarily)

Category 2. Grade at EFT FHT and accompanying comments from CFI/Boss.For someone who had expressed a preference for FJ the following might be true for an average intake where slots available were proportionate to the aircraft in the inventory:

Score 3:3 or below - nope. Say 5% chance
Score 3:4 - rare to get FJ but possible if there were many more FJ slots than
candidates. 20% chance.
Score 4:4 - was a standard green light for being considered for FJ (depending on whether there were slots). 50% chance
Score 4:5 - You'd be perhaps a little unlucky not to get an FJ slot. 65% chance
Score 5:5 - 90% chance
6:5 or 6:6 - Do these people exist?! 99% chance

Category 3. Some kind of behind the scenes character assessment by QFI/CFI/boss to thrash out whether certain cockpit environments would really not be good match for you.

I was a 3:4 (well, a 4:3) with good comments from the Boss who saw me through FHT, but the small mention of "may struggle to keep up in fast moving environment" meant for me that any tiny prospect of FJ was dashed.


Note: for those not familiar with this kind of EFT grading, one score was for Airmanship and the other for Handling - with the potential to receive a maximum of 6:6 (theoretically.....).

Interesting thread.

Out of interest; when did Navs/WSOs cease flying in Helos?.

Having just about managed to struggle through the Gnat course at Valley, I finally arrived at Brawdy on the Hunter course at a time when the RAF had stopped ME training, except for a few refreshers on the Beech Baron - the worthless Jetstreams having been grounded and put into mothballs.

One particularly tough day at Brawdy I'd just landed from a solo GH sortie in the wonderful Welsh weather. As I made a coffee, the Flt Cdr (a really nice chap) chuckled "Bet you found that hard!" as the sortie had included circuits in manual - not much fun when you can barely see through the windscreen in the rain. "Of course if anyone finds it too much for them here, they can always volunteer for helicopters", he continued...

2 of our number took him at his word, only to find that he hadn't actually been serious. But their attitude was deemed suspect and so they were off the station within a few days......

......to start as baby navigators at Finningley :eek:!!

Most of the RAF's frontline FW are at least quite modern nowadays - Typhoon and the prospect of F-35B for FJ mates in particular, plus Atlas, C-17, Voyager, Sentinel for ME pilots. Although there are still the E-3D and RC-135, which aren't exactly youthful....

Should the UK ever need to expand the RAF back to a sensible size though, we'd be well and truly stuffed. Not enough aerodromes, not enough instructors and not enough training aircraft....:uhoh: The nonsensical farce of MFTS simply couldn't cope.

This is only about fast jet pilot streaming.

I spent around seven years as SO1 Trg at HQ 1 Gp and, as such, attended (as the customer with full voting rights) every role disposal conference that I was in the country for during that time. I knew where the OCU slots were, where the front line need was and what the dilution rates, upward requirements and (from the posters) aspirations, dissatisfactions and onward Manning projections for each of the forces were.

Each and every training graduate's report summaries and recommendations were examined carefully and considered for the current slots available and, in many cases, against future needs for future slots. More often than not we would need to delve deeper and call a halt to read the relevant, individual sortie reports (with a degree of cross-referencing).

Let me just plug in a little personal thought at this point. If you grade aircraft types against pilot performance in training, you will consistently risk sending the lower end of your training system to the type that someone has decided is the safest place place to put (potentially) a disproportionate number of so called training risks. You dilute that force. You seriously degrade its capability and risk creating a lack of worthy supervisors, "Qs" and future leaders. That is madness.

So, the "needs of the service" is really the needs of each force with the bigger picture in mind. The Harrier force could not demand the best (as they saw them) guys from training on the grounds that there were handling demands, at the same time that the Tornado force could not be expected always to take the "others". I am not making any comment about folk that constituted that same committee before my time there (I was was also a member of it as a TWU flight commander many years earlier and cand attest to the same level of rigour then).

We smashed the "Harrier myth" by sending a range of pilots to them without completely shining training reports, we maintained the balance of skill levels between the forces, we addressed the needs of the new Typhoon OCU. And downstream success/failure/recource rates did not change significantly.

My job didn't finish there because the OCUs sat on my desk, so I then got to watch the trainees go through their conversion courses and their squadron work-ups. So don't think for a moment that I was a bloke that turned up at role disposals. The same was true for every other member of the boards in their own way.

Acknowledging the OP's question was between FJ, Multis, Helos. Excuse the diversion, please.

Courtney, I can't imagine many of the F-4 and later F3 guys complained about not being "considered" good enough for a ground attack aircraft. Becoming a 'fighter' pilot is the job young men dream about. Many of us have watched Top Gun as children and thought, "That's exactly what I want to do!"