@jb747 I'm not sure if you've already answered this elsewhere on AFF, but why did you originally decide to start learning to fly?
As a child, I lived in the middle of the triangle formed by Pt Cook, Avalon, and Laverton. Pt Cook had 1FTS, ARDU was a Laverton, and the Mirages were being built and tested out of Avalon. So, I saw aircraft all of the time, and became one of those child fanatics.
When I was old enough, I applied to the RAAF (probably for the academy) and they knocked me back. Didn't really work hard enough at HSC, I guess. In retrospect, it was probably a good thing, but if I had applied for direct entry, and not the academy, I may have been successful. Then I realised that they weren't the only avenue to pilots' course in Oz, so I applied to the navy.
The navy also didn't offer me the pilots' course, but came up with an offer of the Observer course. At the time, it was more or less the RAAF navigator course, with a different name. So, I accepted that. I did pretty well on that course, and eventually got to Nowra. My desire to be a pilot hadn't really gone away, but for a while it was on the back burner. I eventually discovered that the RAAF had a constant trickle of navigators doing the pilot course, and that the navy had also sent some observers to do it, though none had gone in the last decade. So, I started asking COs and writing letters, and anything else I could think of. During that time, someone suggested that any selection board would be bound to ask just what I'd been doing to further the goal, which I why I fast tracked a restricted licence whilst I was doing a short term job in Canberra.
In '78 the RAN broke the decade long drought by sending an S2 Observer to do the course. From that point they sent off one O every 18 months or so. I was number two. It eventually stopped again, but about half a dozen of us managed to slip through. They had zero failures from the group. I was the only one of the group who got to fly the A-4, though one other was posted there, but the government took the aircraft away before he got his chance. Their decision to scrap the fixed wing component of the Fleet Air Arm, meant that all of us had to reassess our future, and that meant a move to the RAAF or airlines (or both). The RAAF offered me an F-111 slot, but QF said I could be a 747 SO...and that seemed to have more of a future.
A little addendum. I had a look back at the courses, and there were only six of us, but it wasn't an even spread. The last time the RAN put Observers on to the pilots' course was a double header. Of the six, the first four all ended up in QF ('cos we were fixed wing, I guess), and three ultimately gained A380 commands. The other two remained in the RAN, one achieved quite high rank, and the other was decorated for action in Iraq. A reasonably successful group, even if I do say so.