Gliding "paused"

But he could have been even more accurate by saying it was a 75% increase. Unless the additional THIRTY three zero Tutors are wishful, pie in the sky thinking and we might be lucky to get 20. But then again you could have another 100 but if you haven’t got someone to fly them, which seems to be a stumbling block for AEFs, they are static display. I think it would be better to look for more pilots and get a bigger pool to draw on initially, rather than more aircraft.

The bit that is missing in the statement is any commitment to a timeframe. When will these extra aircraft appear? When will the gliders appear? For the latter we haven’t got anyone to fix the damn things after 2 years.

I would take this with a pinch of salt until we see planes powered and non-powered on site and being put to use.

One would expect the “extra” Tutors to appear within 2 years, or at least some of them! However until we actually see a 120TP at Cranwell, and they are producing students, I wouldn’t hold your breath - rather like the T2/T1 overlap with the Hawks at Valley.

As for 30, that’s about reasonable if you assume a basic “on the line” figure of 5-6 Tutors per EFT unit (although obviously they share the pools at Cranwell and Wittering).

But still you need pilots, a lack of which has been a problem wrt AEF in the last couple of years.

The “Future Aviation” package will require more CFAV instructors to run the “simulators” to allow cadets to progress through the different stages. Note that this will involve more trg time = more staff availability/supervision/transportation required.

Logistically, it will be harder to have a list of “suitable” cadets available for ad-hoc/short notice AEF flying as the different levels of the package will have to be adhered to.

Personally, unless there is a signifiant change in the rules to become an AEF pilot, then I believe that pilot shortage will be a big issue. Likewise, I don’t think that the VGS staff will be sourced that easily - & the Weatherfield situation is a whole separate issue for the huge increase in unit tasking, never mind the proposed relocation. Couple this with the likely cadet/CFAV availability to stay a complete weekend at a "super-VGS - for example, how many parents will expect little Johnny or Josephine to be doing their school homework in a suitable VGS environment with no distraction? My guess is not many.

They will need to design their system so that they can deal with whoever we bring, otherwise they will soon find themselves with empty slots. This means that whoever is running the ground school will need to be able to deliver any lesson on any day at possibly short notice. This is not beyond the wit of man but it needs to be understood by whoever is planning stuff.

This is what I was alluding to although I wasn’t aware!!

Like all ideas that emanate from or policies from HQAC and elsewhere we get lumbered with where is the infrastructure / support?

So we will if I read it correctly simulator training will become part of the cadet training, thus needing more staff at squadrons able to do this.
Will the minimum spec for a sim be specified?
Will there be sufficient courses for staff and how long will they be a weekend? week? several weekends? which will determine people’s willingness to do it. Make it too onerous and people won’t bother.

As we go along you get the feeling people who aren’t nor never have been CFAV have ideas that we are expected to just run with and the ideas people have lost the plot.

I thought that this sim training was in addition to the flying but delivered at the AEF or VGS by ground-school personnel at that location, not something that squadrons will deliver before a visit.

Rather than sitting around for most of a day (or weekend!) in a building or caravan waiting for a 30 minute jolly there will be an enhanced training package available on the ground to further develop skills. Whether that is simply a pre-brief or run-through of the flying session or a development of wider skills I do not know. It may be that more advanced students will have a package of virtual sorties to complete before and/or after a proper flight.

Depends on the level of the trg; Fam + Blue = PTT = volunteers mentioned. Regardless, this will still be additional trg, & if done on the AEF/VGS day in question, may well lengthen the day. That will go down very well for those who will have to travel further distances anyway. I’m not 100% sure that anyone on high has thought about the logistics, staff required, trg time, etc, to ensure that this fits neatly with the “new” package.

Yes, volunteers at the VGS just as we used to (and will) have volunteers at the VGS doing the flying and admin.

It shouldn’t really lengthen the day too much if at all if they do have a ground team managing it and not interrupting the air team. Mostly it ought to replace time sitting around doing nothing of value while waiting for a flight into sitting around in a PTT doing something useful while waiting for a flight.

The logistics are the Achilles heel in the model as it has thus far been presented. I have cadets who baulk at wasting one day at a VGS, let alone 2. I have plenty who struggle to be available for one day on a weekend and who will probably never be able to travel to spend a whole weekend at a VGS and that is before we consider trying to find the staff to take them there - presumably we can’t expect the VGS to collect cadets on Friday night or Saturday morning, then bring them back for us on Sunday evening!

[quote=“MikeJenvey, post:1026, topic:1152, full:true”]
I’m not 100% sure that anyone on high has thought about the logistics, staff required, trg time, etc, to ensure that this fits neatly with the “new” package.[/quote]
They won’t. That would require a level of deliberating, reflective thinking, fore-planning etc etc etc that we’ve never seen before. The idea will be put out there and then changed several times all the time expecting us to comply with what they say for each one.

As every day goes by you increasingly feel before they put an idea out there we are consulted to see if it will work and if not what we need in place before it becomes the way we have to do it. Before making it policy they should make sure the infrastructure is in place, by this I mean sufficient courses/training and this is completed before the policy comes into place, not as seems to happen have the idea, make it policy and then we play catch up with varying degrees of success across the country.
The people running us and making the decisions are so far detached from “the cadet experience” as to not even be in the same country.

As for it being done at the VGS/AEF hardly inspiring for cadets to go expecting to get airborne and then sitting around playing a glorified computer game. They can do that on whatever technology they have with them to while away the journey and in-between times. This seems to be bred of the paranoia of allowing teenagers (cadets) just relaxing and needing to fill every minute they are with us. As supervising staff I want to be able to just sit around and maybe look at the inside of my eyelids for a while, not constantly entertaining teenagers.

Now to get a weekends gliding try this for travel !

http://www.theaa.com/route-planner/index.jsp#fromNode=0|Omagh||-7.309960|54.597715|toNode=0|Kirknewton||-3.425237|55.886883

The other way by air would take them two hrs to get to the airport an hour before the flight ,40 min flight to Edinburgh the coach to Kirknewton so still about 4hs each way , figure out the costs at about £75 minimum return flights .
So for all cadets in NI not including staff costs approx. £40,000 in travel costs alone for one visit per year.

Now try the same trip from Orkney where they are opening a new DF. I can’t rule out Shetland being on the cards either.
Granted this involves fewer people but even some units on the mainland will have insane journeys, even for AEF unledd they detach to a nearer airfield.

Oh for the good old days when the AEF came to you - I flew in Chipmunks at Bembridge airport on the Isle of Wight, only a short hop across for the AEF, very little travel time for us, maximum use of resources.

Job for the Staff Cadets/QAIC to deliver the ground school surely?

Will we have staff cadets and even fewer those who’ve done QUAIC, Add in geographic spread = not feasible, although the Ivory Towers wouldn’t see it as such.

Not initially as we have had no AGT courses, but once we do get some courses running it’s the obvious way forward. (Did Staff Cadets get HTD in the past? I know cases attending courses could claim tailgate back but what did staff cadets do?).

Interesting you should say that, as it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility. 6AEF did it to Manston in the post-Chipmunk, pre-Tutor days.

I don’t know what level staff cadets are trained to but I can assure you that the QAIC syllabus does not go into enough detail on these subjects to create ground-school instructors for real flying. Sure the course goes into a lot of detail on various aerospace topics but I’m struggling to think of any of it that’s geared specifically towards gliding.

Well a Staff Cadet on a VGS would be trained on the system and I don’t see why a QAIC couldn’t be too.

The other question would have to be whether any future VGS syllabus/syllabae will have to fulfil the same audit requirements as service training courses (ie Phase 1, 2 etc) and be DSAT compliant - this could account for the apparent lack of Staff Cadet instructors in the future VGS system, and would throw a spanner in the works of suggested groundschool training by QAIC graduates.