The difficulty with media is it becomes stale as soon as it’s printed. That and the organisation has a thing for keeping stuff for 10 years and recycling them! How many posters are still benign handed out with the old tutor logo on them? It doesn’t help when something like the montage thing at the IMW is finalised with gliding a pinnacle part of it.
Misrepresentation, Trading Standards which I am sure have enough leeway for someone to use when what is cited on the main website is flagrantly fraudulent and misrepresents what the Corps offers.
As to whether or not media become stale depends on its format. One of the supposed advantages of electronic media is that is dynamic and can be changed constantly to reflect what is happening now. It should take no more than 5 minutes to delete all references to gliding as an activity and replace it with gliding is currently not and activity the ATC can provide.
When the article hit the newspapers some time ago about no gliding I was asked by people whether it was true or not and I said it was and explained why it had been off the menu for so long.
You clearly don’t have a grasp of the law. None of those apply to the situation. You should spent less time on Facebook looking at those pumping out compensation-sad-face-photos.
On the website it states
Gliding Induction Course
Your gliding experience kicks off at a Volunteer Gliding Squadron (VGS) flying either Vigilant motor gliders or Viking winch-launch gliders. Your focus, along with others from your ATC squadron or CCF (RAF) unit, will be to complete the Gliding Induction Course (GIC).
Designed to give you a taste for Air Cadet Gliding, the GIC consists of three levels of instruction. On your first visit you’ll be taught the GIC 1. Later visits will cover GIC 2 and 3. In these levels you’ll learn all about aerodynamics and controlling the aircraft, first in a classroom, then taking control and practicing what you’ve learned in the air. After you’ve completed the course, you’ll be awarded a GIC certificate.
and then goes onto say
Gliding Scholarship Course
You’ve done your Gliding Induction Course (GIC), so what’s next? Getting your Gliding Scholarship Wings.
This course gets you deeper into flying and gives you more flight time. To be nominated for a Gliding Scholarship (GS) just let your squadron or unit staff know you want in. It’s open to anyone over 16 and you’re not required to have completed a GIC 1, 2 or 3, but it’s great if you have. Once you pass the standard medical check, it’s just a matter of waiting for a place on the course to become available.
How is this not misleading if not fraudulent and misrepresenting what the Corps currently offers?
How many of the cadets on your squadron have done a GIC since Apr 14 let alone an ATC GS? Give numbers not some disparaging remark to deflect an answer.
We all know we haven’t done gliding since 2014, yet on the website which is designed to attract and inform potential cadets, we apparently still do.
I don’t disagree that it’s a poor advertisement, but I can’t see that it’s illegal.
So how does it seem to you that the ACO is actively displaying / advertising what is effectively a “non-functional activity” - truthful or not truthful?
It’s clearly “non-truthful” - so what should be done about it?
The term used was offences against misrepresentation or trading standards laws. The ACO doesn’t fall into either of those no matter what you may think.
I think they should correct the website to fix the issue - but only for the sake of decency and integrity, not a loosely ties issue to some incorrect law.
The several thousand who apply every year probably can answer the question better than the Air Force Board; there are plenty of reasons to have a service flying career which outweigh those of being (generally) a civvy Boeing or 'Bus driver.
perhaps a romantic answer, but for some they want to serve their Queen and country, and what better way than with Wings on your chest?
for those with the desire to fly, and the competency to consider it a career, but also the desire to serve why not?
The reasons why RAF officers join non-flying branches would be a good place to start!
It’s not all about the winged master race (WMR), there are the Eng roles to get the airframes ready for the WMR, J2/J3 to ident targets (and things which are definintely not targets)… Not everyone wants to be a pilot.
Yes, that’s what I meant.
People don’t just join the RAF to fly - ergo those that do likely join the RAF as pilots instead of doing civvy flying for much the same reasons as those that join ground branches do.
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No, still trying to work it out!
PN:
2WMR surely!
Joking aside, flying recruitment would seem to be fairly healthy. It’s a far removed experienced compared to most civil flying (certainly that of comparable, or better, pay) with very broad horizons and plenty of opportunities. For once the MOD isn’t spouting propaganda when they say there is potential to fly some quite exciting (and new, or newish) bits of kit. Very few in civvy street could be in the First Officer seat and an A330 at 23/24 years old, let alone one leading a multi type formation sortie whilst conducting AAR. Few civvies could find themselves in control of a 1100hp turboprop, or a turboprop twin with fewer than 75 odd hours. It’s a whole different experience.
But how secure is the experience?
Who would have thought we’d have had the wholesale dismantling of our nation’s military flying that we have seen.
Who is to say there isn’t another surprise down the line? In that respect there is a lot more opportunities outside the military which offer job security and in this day and age job security and the monthly bank balance addition are all important. Exciting prospects don’t pay mortgages.
For me a limiting factor is needing to be an officer to fly an aircraft in the RAF? What makes an officer a better pilot than anyone else, it didn’t seem to matter 75 years ago? Or were SNCO pilots second rate? Why are there NCO pilots in the AAC?
Are drone pilots all officers? Are drones part of the exciting bits of kit?
The difference between RAF pilots and AAC pilots is that, the core business of the RAF is aviation, making pilots better suited to senior leadership, ergo starting them at officer leaves enough time to reach senior positions. With the army air corps, obviously aviation is more directly in support of land based operations, meaning senior leadership is better served by experience in infantry, armour, artillery or possibly even Intel (debatable). The case 75 years ago was a lot more planes, and lack of progression (vertically) meaning NCO pilots were suitable. If we had a lot more planes…
I always thought that NCO pilots came about during the Second World War as the need for aircrew meant taking on people who were from a social background that, at the time, meant they were not considered officer material.
Nowadays the RAF will commission anyone who meets the criteria, regardless of how much of Devon their Dad owns, while the Army still puts a lot of weight into whether your ‘face fits’ in the mess.
Does anyone else remember the recent Sandhurst documentary where it showed the officer cadets being interviewed by the regiments/corps they wanted to commission into? Including the woman who wanted to be AAC but was turned down because the retired officer on the interview board didn’t like her.
unfortunately a very true statement, there was a cadet in our unit went through uni and joined the OTC. He was the OTC senior cadet and graduated top marks in engineering but went to the army recruitment to join as a REME officer and they laughed at him because he lived in a S@£Thole of a place wouldn’t even let him do the tests just sent him home with infantry information telling him everyone from his area is a squaddie and he should realise that.
It put him off joining the army and any force as an officer, still wanting to join the forces he then joined the RAF as a Avionics Tech after a while he was told to go for commission. He eventually done it after a good number of people putting a bit of pressure on him.
He now flies helicopters last I spoke to him he was a Flt Lt, but always remembers the way the army spoke and treated him.
I read a book once in which it interviewed Apache pilots and their backgrounds.
in it the majority of them were NCO’s and they were saying how the army doctrine was they were soldiers first, AAC pilots second. So for them it was good that they came from the ranks as they had a better understanding where the infantry were needing assistance and could understand their tactics and what they were doing, more so than direct entrant officers.
Yes, I remember that documentary, of the cavalry officers that I’ve known, all seemed to have had a rather privileged upbringings with matching accents, a couple were even decent human beings. A very definite case of selection based upon background (examples drawn from: Lifeguards, QDG, QRL, SDG and KRH).
The RAF is definitely more open to the proliteriat than the army, but I question that someone makes a better senior manager because they’ve been a pilot, just like in industry where the modern thinking is that having degree in something vague and minimal experience makes management material.