Mass murderer to Pilot
 

Greetings! Long time lurker, first time poster here.

I just came accross this article about how a female Army chef eventually ended up flying Apaches for Teeny Weeny Airlines:

She joined the Army Catering Corps - now part of the Royal Logistic Corps - at the age of 17:

The Army was a natural choice for me as I got to learn more about cooking, which I love, and I got to travel at the same time,” she said.

It was while catering for the Army Air Corps (AAC) in Bosnia that Capt Gordon found a new passion:

I was watching two Lynx [helicopters] flying low level at night up the estuary on the coast of Croatia - their strobe lights flashing,” she said. “I had this gut-wrenching feeling that that was what I wanted to do above anything else - I wanted to fly.

Which got me to thinking; what are the most unlikely or unusual branch transfers to pilot that you've seen? Going from WSO/WSOp to Pilot is not much of a surprise, but what about from Medic to steely-eyed dealer of 1000lbs-at-the-end-of-a-laser? And what of the Sky Pilots who fancied following in the footsteps of Pontius?

Over to you . . .

Rock officer lost some toes to frostbite, was offered other branches. Said, "Yes please, I'd like to be a pilot". They said "don't be silly". He won. Eventually, he flew Jaguars.

Met Observer to pilot

How about RAF Cpl Policeman to SAS Trooper?

Catering corps to SAS trooper?

Schoolboy to steely-eyed killer?

Dan Winterland
 

The "Rock Officer" is now a BA skipper.

Know of a couple of FJ pilots who went on to the SAS

It was on BBC last week (Going back. Giving back) He originally failed the coordination test for pilot and joined as a 'Rock Officer'. Whilst on a training exercise he got 'trench foot' and lost his toes. At Headley Court he was talking to a Tornado Wg Cdr who had ejected over the North Sea. He said to the Wg Cdr that his career was finished and the Wg Cdr asked why. That got him thinking and he had another go at pilot and was successful, ending up on Jaguars. They even found a Jaguar that he flew in the museum at Cosford. On leaving the service he went on to be a Captain with BA.👍

And now a training captain at BA.

REME Craftsman > RAF & civ pilot :)

Education officer to pilot to education officer.

We've had "storeman" (fetch-and-carry boy in the company warehouse) do PPL/CPL privately and then got taken on as a 1st officer, (now a captain) on the company fleet flying Embraer 145 and BAe146s.

PDR

Victoria Police Air Wing: storeman to Chief Pilot.

Lovely fellow.

Was a flight commander at the Towers in the 80s with a guy who went Marine Branch to nav, I think on the Hercules fleet

Going the other way, I remember in the 1970s getting to know a caretaker in the local school who had been a Lanc captain in Bomber Command, and I'm sure his story wasn't unique. Personally I went from rockape to nav, but that's not that unusual, one of the tanker squadron COs at Marham was also an ex Rock.

Wander00,
we had at least two ex Marine Branch officers turn up on the Hercules fleet as Navigators. At least two of the NCOs became Loadmasters.

I used to know a consultant pathologist. For a diversion at the weekends, he joined the TA as a Combat Med Tech, reaching the rank of Cpl. He was called up in GW1 in his CMT role. When his day job came to light (or existing knowledge thereof was acted upon), he went from Cpl to Colonel overnight.

There are plenty of AAC aircrew who are not pure breed.

RAFP
RMP
REME
RA
RE
RLC
Int Corps
R Signals
Infantry
Cavalry
AMS
RM

Just a few previous capbadge of people that have been through the system that I can think of off the top of my head.

There are plenty of ex-FJ guys at SAS...I know several in Copenhagen :}.

Going the other way though, met a chap manning the kiosk at a mid-West US gas station (petrol) who claimed to have been an ex-KC135 driver.