Sir Stu Peach surely dispelled the myth that you have to be a Pilot to get to the top of the tree.

During the exchange of views in the posts above, perhaps one needs to look at how things have progressed in the last 30 or so years.

Setting aside the strides made by the fair sex, we had people like Sir Charles Ness as a navigator and Sir Michael Alcock (Engineer) being AFB members. Currently and in addition to the principal engineer - Air Marshal Julian Young there is Richard Knighton who has just been made 3 star and is a major player in the central staffs.

CAS does 'sit at the table' by himself but in the background there is a large staff of specialist advisers who feed him the briefs etc. True, his operational experience and probably his personality as well are major factors but what he says, writes and does is a distillation of many contributions and the 'grooming system', which sees a large number of contenders at (possibly) gp capt level, gradually whittled down to a slack handful at 3/4 star level is the power behind the throne.

Old Duffer

And that you have to be reasonably fit!

Interesting reading about the CAS needing a back ground in flying pointy grey beasties. This is relatively new, before Sir Keith Williamson no CAS had operational experience of fast jets, Sir Michael Beetham had flown and commanded a Squadron of Valiants, but his early operational career was on Lancasters and, I think, Lincolns. I know that these gents were a bit long in the tooth to get some Hunter or Lightning time in, but that's the point, its operational combat flying experience which is at the heart of the RAF's professional leader's background. Beetham could have flown Lightnings, perhaps, but he was a Bomber pilot at a time when the profile of the types according to role was far more divergent. As well as Andy Pulford, one more past CAS had experience of Helicopters. Peter Harding, but that was in addition to his time on Canberras and I think Strike role Phantoms as well.

FB

At least the USAF is honest about its "Fighter Pilot Mafia" that controls far too much of the Air Force choice of leadership.

It used to be the "Bomber Mafia" before the demise of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

No I think you've misunderstood, I didn't say that someone had said they must as such, I'm simply alluding to the perceived wisdom. In all but one case, the CAS has always flown a combat type operationally, assuming Helicopters in RAF service are not classed as frontline combat aircraft. And I'm not saying this is a good or a bad custom, simply that it has always been that way, probably through the logic of having been close to the core raison det're of why there is an air force in the first place.

But I accept that nothing is set in stone.

FB

Fair comment FB - "assuming Helicopters in RAF service are not classed as frontline combat aircraft" - but I would suggest that 23 Chinook DFCs in Afghan, a triple DFC holder and the only CGC awarded to aircrew, ever, has started to change the narrative? You correctly suggest it has always seemed to be this way - maybe those attitudes are slowly changing? A friend who was in Recruiting at the time said that would-be pilots were split broadly 50/50 between Typhoon and Chinook over what they wanted to fly. As helicopters were flavour of the month, it was perhaps logical that Pully would take the role - he's also left behind a cohort of highly decorated and able RW players that will challenge for leading roles in the future. Notably, they're all following his lead in avoiding 1* and above positions in JHC…..

SASLess - quite right. There's an insightful book entitled "The Rise of the Fighter Generals" (available here on PDF) which tells the tale of the rise and fall of the Bomber Mafia. A follow-up should look at the subsequent Tac Air / Fighter domination of the highest positions until the spat between Moseley and the Sec Def (Gates). Although publicly he quit over the Minot Nuke fiasco, it seems that Moseley's continual counter-briefing over F-22 numbers during the prolonged asymmetric campaigns it contributed little to, exasperated the political leadership (who were also eyeing lucrative contracts for the B-21 bomber). Sec Gates was advocating more SOC, more Tac Airlift and more ISR - and felt the fighter mafia were frustrating those efforts. Very pointedly, his successor, Gen Schwartz, was a Spec Ops C-130 / MH-53 pilot….

Indeed Evalu8ter,

Quite a few Field Ambulance medical orderlies and Doctors over the decades have picked up VCs and so on, I also understand Private Charles Godfrey of the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard Platoon, responsible for defending the UK coast line between the Pier Novelty Rock Emporium and Timothy Whites on the High Street, picked up a Military Medal (For Bravery in the Field). He got the medal while serving as a medical orderly in the Great War, while also a confirmed Conscientious objector!

FB

LJ, thank you for that synopsis.