Tony Cunnane's RAF Years

This page was written 9 June 2010

I am writing the stories in this section of my website in such a way that they should appeal particularly to, and be understood by, non-pilots. However, current RAF pilots and others who are too young to remember the 1960s/70s may also find the stories of interest. I am adding these pages in response to regular readers who like flying stories (my webstats over the last 10 years have consistently shown that those pages are by far the most popular) and keep on asking where I went after my own pilot training ended in September 1967 and before I went on an exchange posting to Pakistan in June 1969. That is a gap in my website that I've long known about but I never got around to writing the pages. To avoid repetition I have provided hot links to other pages on this website for those who come to this section first. I have also explained pilot 'jargon' and expanded most abbreviations – at least the first time they appear.

Long before I graduated from No 4 Flying Training School at Valley I had realised that I was not cut out to be a fighter pilot. To put it bluntly, I was too old. As I have related on other pages (starting here), I was not only very surprised to find myself sent off for pilot training (how ungrateful can one be?) but it turned out that I would be the oldest RAF pilot student within living memory – 30 years old when I started, 31 when I gained my 'wings' (we got them at the end of Basic Flying Training in those days - see image left, click to pop up a larger version), and 2 weeks past my 32nd birthday when I ended the Hunter advanced flying course at Valley.

As the Valley course progressed all my contemporaries on both the Hunter and the Gnat streams were 'sweating' on their next posting. The RAF system in force in the 1960s separated students graduating from the basic flying training into one of three streams: those destined for fast fighter jets went to RAF Valley; those destined for the more sedate transport and maritime aircraft and the V Force, and who would benefit from the companionship and expertise of other crew members, were sent off to RAF Oakington to fly the venerable Varsity; those destined for helicopters were sent to RAF Tern Hill and for many years were never heard of again – apart from Search and Rescue duties.

It was generally accepted that those who actually wanted to become helicopter pilots for the rest of their RAF career, got what they wanted. In my experience over many years, helicopter pilots were the most contented pilots in the RAF. Very few, if any, students at basic flying training opted for the Oakington route because, rightly or wrongly, that was considered second best by the RAF as a whole as well as by the students, and no-one is likely to volunteer to be second best right at the start of their training. I had always assumed that because of my background as an Air Signaller and Air Electronics Officer that I would be sent to Oakington at the end of my basic training with a future career in either Coastal or Bomber Commands to follow. However I had won the prize at Leeming for the best all-round student and I suppose the RAF felt bound to send me to Valley. I was both proud and apprehensive to be so selected and all the more determined to show that grumpy group captain at the Ministry of Defence, who had clearly wanted to stop me going for pilot training, that even AEOs could make good pilots given the aptitude, right training and sufficient determination.

The RAF personnel staff at MOD allocated 'slots' for graduating students according to the RAF's needs rather than the capabilities or wishes of the students. Of the six students on my Valley course, three were selected to fill slots at RAF Chivenor for further training with a view to a posting to an operational fast jet squadron, one was sent to fill the slot at Oakington with a view to a posting to the V Force as a co-pilot, one was sent off for helicopter training, and I was sent to the RAF Central Flying School (CFS) at RAF Little Rissington for training as a Qualified Flying Instructor (QFI).

When I expressed disappointment at my posting, it was pointed out to me that the RAF likes to select a small number of newly-trained pilots to go straight on for training as Qualified Flying Instructors.

"Young trainee pilot students often feel more at home with an instructor who has just finished his own training," said the Chief Instructor. "It gives them something to aim for! The RAF has always done this. First tourist QFIs are known as 'Creamed-Off' QFIs, usually abbreviated to 'creamies' – because they have been creamed off for the better job."

I was not convinced. "In my case I will not be so much creamed off as skimmed off" I complained.

"Be that as it may, that's where you're going!" snapped the Chief Instructor.

And so it was that six weeks after completing my own pilot training I was flying my first sortie at Little Rissington, in the right hand seat of the Jet Provost, at the start of my 10-month course learning how to be a flying instructor.

For those of you who like to see extracts from flying log books click here to see the record of my first month at CFS

More pages to follow when I've written them.