I know how good the BGA junior setup is, as I’m involved with one of the local clubs. It’s also why I point all the keen cadets in the clubs direction and why we have more cadets on squadron with ‘C’ wings than cadets with rafac wings!
Why wait? If they are interested and ask, and a junior setup is accessible, why not be honest and signpost them there as an alternative option.
I loved gliding as a cadet and it remains some of my fondest memories to today. My kids thought they would get that experience too at some point but I have a trial voucher ready for eldest cadet as they will age out without a single glider flight and am getting memberships for myself and youngest cadet as it looks like with the limited time they have left they will not get a flight with RAFAC.
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Nope, and try filtering to only show the juniors it suddenly becomes a lot less
First funny thing you’ve said.
What is it you think this “already written” report is going to contain that makes it so infuriating for you. Maybe it’s just asking for some information, you know in like a survey format.
If my Cadets waited until they had gotten a RAFAC gliding experience to go to a BGA club they would be adults.
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Putting my cynic head on…
The organisation has form for making a decision, and then pushing out a survey that they hope will match the conclusions that have already been made…
Looking to when the tutor contract expires, AEFs will have to adapt to whatever aircraft the service has chosen if it’s suitable. If it’s not, then we could lose powered flights altogether. A nice new shiny survey that shows that the cadets and staff were not bothered anyway could head off some tough questions?
Of course, that is ignoring the fact that 2FTS are gliding providers. But I guess the same could be said for VGSs when the viking fleet become time expired.
It’s being pushed by the VGSs rather than AEFs… that says it all.
The fight for their relevancy and survival begins.
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Don’t think either survey is weighted toward VGS or AEF it covers mentoring, civilian flying, careers. If it was a VGS survival survey it would have just one question which is best VGS or AEF, and two answer buttons both being “VGS” obviously.
Its actually come from an AGS account as 616 is no longer a VGS, bader just hasn’t caught up 4 years later
With all the VGS limitations, unless your sqn is located on the doorstep of a VGS, why should we currently use them compared with a BGA site? Take 3 - 4 cadets (if lucky to get the glidings slots), drive say 2 hrs each way, or, take a mini-bus load to a nearby local BGA site for a much better gliding experience?
Yes, BGA = pay to fly, but in terms of direct liaison, availability, travelling / staff time, etc, the VGS loses. Unleash the restrictions, let sqns pay to go gliding.
From previous published minutes (obtained via FoI - why aren’t these openly published?), it was quoted as 30 gliders in the “Forward” Available Fleet" that are serviceable - they hope to make it 52 . Note, in 2010, the organisation had a total of 160 gliders / motor gliders, so now we will have less than a 1/3 of previous assets. Chances of gliding reduced drastically. Let’s use other options - ah, let’s not.
Nominated BGA sites were listed for proposed “blanket” approval back as far as 2017; I liaised with the BGA Chairman & also had extensive liaison, including a meeting at Cambridge Gliding Club, with our then Regional Gliding Officer (very pro-active). Then, everything was curtailed, no reason given to to sqns. Mushroom syndrome that still continues.
The “ticks in the boxes” statistics were mentioned earlier; on a previous thread, the numbers were made more understandable based on cadet numbers; they are actually very, very small percentages! Number of cadets from this link = 41720 RAFAC Cadets, for 2018/19:
So, from the linked statistics, the different areas actually equate to this - paltry numbers overall (& as previously mentioned, some of those will be for cadets who progressed from one level to another = “false” count):
FAM: 14.1%
Blue: 4.6%
Bronze: 0.73%
Silver: 0.23%
Gold Part 1: 0.029%
Gold Part 1&2: 0.0024%
Staff Cdt G2: 0.026%
Staff Cdt G1: 0.011%
To put that in local context, other than 3 - 4 cadets who were lucky enough to experience gliding as part of a RAFAC National Aerospace Cse, none of the cadets on my sqn have experienced RAFAC gliding for a considerable period (7+ years). Cadets have joined, & left our squadron, without experiencing any gliding, which is an exceptionally dire state of affairs.
Maintenance - from this Foi, the Serco contract for glider maintenance at Syerston was £9,400,034 over 7 years to 2015, £1.34m / yr average - a huge amount (for 160 airframes)! Yet, apparently there were subsequent maintenance issues…
if 2FTS weren’t so “head in the sand” they would admit how bad things are & work to a solution.
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Holy f… PER YEAR.
What’s that per cadet flown?
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Well, doubt it will be the Prefect.
Well, here’s a thought - if the lifetime operating cost for one one powered aircraft was say the equivalent of 5 gliders…
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With the BGA a winch launch costs around £11.50 plus a fee per minute flown. Let’s assume a deal is struck on a bulk buy - and say it’s £12 per launch.
That would give us 111,666 launches.
Given that the taster gliding courses consist of 3 launches… that would be 37,200 sets of 3 launches.
So the cost of just the maintenance could have given every cadet that wanted to glide 1 experience sortie of 3 launches per year.
Given that some cadets won’t want to fly. That’s every cadet on every squadron with an opportunity, but given non flyers probably works out at several sorties per year.
Just on the maintenance cost.
Factor in staff costs, administration, infrastructure, training etc etc…
You could offer multiple scholarships, fly every cadet and save money with the BGA.
And not have all the stress and grief of running our own operation!
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That does rely on the BGA having the capacity to provide us with that many launches on top of what they already provide to their own members.
Although compared to what 2FTS provides us with even if they could give us a percentage of that it would be a massive improvement.
It couldn’t happen overnight - but there’s a lot of incentive for the BGA and RAFAC to explore the option!
If the RAF dissolved 2 FTS, it could give at least 1 Viking to every BGA Junior club to cover the extra capacity.
It’s not like they don’t have previous experience of giving away a fleet of aircraft. Maybe they could bring back Middleton to oversee it?
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I believe that number is called ‘a metric ■■■■ ton’.
Actually the answer is 3.5 Dagger GTs per unit at trade.
I reckon they’d probably give you a better price too for an order of 3000+ boats.
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Good point, well made.
Then we could take some of the left over 2FTS budget and spend it AT & DofE. 