Pilot Training
Whilst I was on temporary duty at Far East Air Force Headquarters in Singapore in 1964/5, the RAF's entire force of Valiant bombers was permanently grounded after one particular aircraft sustained a main spar failure whilst airborne from Gaydon. Several hundred Valiant aircrew and ground crew were suddenly out of a job and had to be re-trained for other duties. Although I could have continued with the duties that had taken me to Singapore, I was still basically a Valiant Air Electronics Officer (AEO) and so I was sent back to England in July 1965 and replaced in Singapore by a Vulcan-qualified officer. My job as an instructor at Gaydon had also disappeared with the demise of the Valiant. The powers-that-be decided I was due for a desk job. I was posted to the Headquarters of No 3 Group at RAF Mildenhall in the appointment known as P2, the Personnel Officer responsible for managing the careers of almost 700 junior officers – and I do mean 700. As well as pilots, navigators and ground branch officers, that number included many AEOs like me, all of whom were either currently employed on Victor bombers or had been employed on the Valiants before they were taken out of service.
A few of the former Valiant AEOs took advantage of this unexpected break in their careers to apply for re-training as pilots. This may seem an odd thing to do but in fact many AEOs, myself included, had long thought that the writing was on the wall for our careers. Apart from a few odd jobs here and there, the only openings for AEOs were on the V-Force and in Coastal Command. In spite of oft-repeated official promises that we had the same promotion prospects as pilots had, only one AEO had at that time reached the rank of wing commander and there seemed little likelihood of any of the rest of us ever reaching that or any higher rank. In fact one of my AEO friends did, many years later, retire in the rank of air commodore but there were by then only a few dozen AEOs still serving. It was widely believed in 1966 that a mandatory redundancy scheme for AEOs was on the cards. In January 1966 I wrote a letter to the AOC following a briefing I had been given at Bomber Command HQ about AEOs' career prospects. I still have a copy of that letter.
It was almost unheard of for any aircrew officer to be permitted to re-train for another aircrew speciality, partly because by the time they applied they were usually above the age limit (then 26), but mainly on cost grounds. The RAF took the not unreasonable view that if they permitted an AEO, or navigator, to be retrained as a pilot they would have to recruit someone else to replace him – and there was always the possibility that the AEO or navigator might fail the pilot training because the attrition rate was quite high at the flying training schools.
The AEOs who were determined that they wanted to re-train had to submit formal written applications through ‘the usual channels’ and all the applications that got past their squadron and station commanders eventually dropped into my in-tray at 3 Group HQ. I had to evaluate them all and make a recommendation on each one before I passed it along the corridor to the new Air Officer Commanding, Air Vice-Marshal ‘Splinters’, later Air Chief Marshal Sir Denis, Smallwood (Smallwood - Splinters - get it?). I was dismayed to see that most of the applications were lacking in substance and not likely to impress anyone. The shortest one, correctly laid out in the rather stilted formal Service language of the day, stated simply:
‘Sir, I request that I may be re-trained as a pilot, I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient servant, Joe Bloggs, Flight Lieutenant’
That was it! No explanation, no pleading, no attempt to convince anyone that it was in the RAF’s best interests that tens of thousands of pounds should be spent on re-training the writer.
Advance to read what happened next!
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