It would give something for Qaic cadets to do… Would even have an excuse to teach in a flying suit.
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We need the brutal honesty from the RAF to one question … are they are willing and able to fully support AEF and AEG and scholarships, as we knew it in sustainable manner, nationally?
If not, what are they willing and prepared to support and sustainably deliver nationally? Get this signed off at AFB and at ministerial level.
If this was said we could move on.
We are all grown ups in nasty world. I cannot imagine many on here who have not seen friends lose jobs or been made redundant or been in positions where they have ‘dodged the bullet’ as over the years companies reorganise, close or merge, so if Air Cadet flying is not something the RAF can properly support why don’t they just say so? This survey is a pointless exercise, if the results point towards something the RAF can’t and or isn’t willing to do. Which means they could lose 2FTS and save a few quid.
However if the RAF cannot or isn’t willing to support meaningful flying, this would open a debate as to what the RAF’s actual role in the Air Cadets is and what the raison d’etre and future of the Air Cadets is? What is the point of being supported by the RAF (which was something I used to eulogise about) if cadets are not getting plenty of flying opportunities. For Joe Public, the RAF = flying. So it’s not unreasonable to expect that when parents bring little Janet and John along to an intake or someone does a talk, it will be predominately flying this and that, like it used to be. Not as it has been for the last few years AT, DofE, soft skills and lightly touch flying almost as an afterthought, hoping, in open forum, no one asks awkward questions about flying.
Could we truthfully call ourselves an “air-minded youth organisation”, without a viable, ‘bread and butter’ sustainable, national programme of flying opportunities, like we had. We can do the theory stuff and fight sims, but it’s not the same as being a few thousand feet up in a 2 seater.
We don’t need grandstanding once in a blue moon events to provide pictures of cadets in/around RAF for senior officers to get in and put on social media and say aren’t we good. We had cadets go on a mass flying event (there was supposed to be another but it never happened) and while they enjoyed it, they were out all day they weren’t interested in the additional things, but as two of them said “helped to pass the time”. The member of staff who went, said it was a lot of waiting around and people who seemed intent on keeping the cadets busy for the sake of it.
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Dear HQAC.
Previous data releases have shown that the flying and gliding offer to the cadets not only doesnt meet what is advertised in national led literature and press releases, but it also doesnt even meet the most basic of coverage for cadets.
What do us Sqn based CFAVs want?
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An adequate level of provision, spread evenly across the cadet numbers.
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An understanding that as a rule Sqn based CFAVs cannot at the drop of a hat fill a vacant flying or gliding slots.
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That ideas for improvement are listened to and actively considered.
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Remove the barriers to full use of RAFAC resources and allow us to seek our own avenues of increasing the time cadets spend flying.
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Most importantly, that IF the flying and gliding offering to cadets is to be ‘rebaselined’ at a lower level, that whatever level of service is determined as deliverable, it is actually delivered and that all advertising and external outputs show that level and not a fictional “what if or pigs may fly” scenario.
As a former member of the blue lanyard mafia I’d have jumped at the chance of becoming an AEF FSC. Might have kept me more interested in aerospace stuff than I currently am.
Genuine question - what are people expecting?
You’ve got about 15000 AEF sorties (possibly up to 20000 max) and 42 gliders (with an availability rate of 50-60% of those).
That’s it. That’s the capacity, it don’t get any bigger than that.
What does the RAFAC want to do with that capacity?
Currently you’ve got some filling their boots (and keeping very quiet about it) and others getting nothing.
See my point one above
I did a summer as an AEF FSC many years ago. I watched The Crow twice a day and flew every other day (probably in contravention of some regs). I would have loved some sort of teaching role to kill the time
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Remove the barriers to its full use and allow us to seek our own avenues of increasing the time cadets spend flying.
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This I should have added as point 5.
Sby.
Who has ticked the answer box?
Me, accidentally. But I unticked it straightaway at my end.
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I’d be interested to see that capacity over time.
Has AEF capacity been lost over the last 10 years (in which case, it can get bigger than it is at the moment), or have we just got worse at distributing and using it?
Or, is this entirely an attitude problem and things are actually the same, we just don’t think it.
This is the 2 FTS lost opportunity data, 6 FTS is similar which gives the just under 15% I was talking about
Ps LASER continue to manage their end brilliantly, some best practice could be shared
That says 7% not 15%. If you get your 15% by adding the 2FTS and 6FTS percentages together then that’s not how the maths works
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269 sorties across a year due to no shows whilst not brilliant, isn’t the thousands that were alluded to.
In context I suppose, that could be massive or it could be tiny. Without knowing how many sorties were on the cards that could be 25% or 2%.
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It also doesn’t say how many sorties were cancelled by the VGS. Is this 7% of viable flights or 7% of the total slots offered? I’m assuming the former as there are no entries for pilots missing, aircraft being u/s, weather calculations. In which case the slide title is highly misleading (one might even say deliberately) to blame the squadrons/contingents for all the list opportunities.
I suppose I may be wrong and ,“no show” could include VGS staff
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Interesting data set when this level of detail is not reported by VGS and AGS’s.
What is the data source (and using a 2FTS slide isn’t a data source, any one can download it and do that).
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As I said some honesty from the RAF about what it is able and willing to commit to long term.
Not surveys and platitudes, cold hard this is what we are willing and prepared to commit to and provide.
I think the RAF really needs to decide if it still really wants its “youth arm”, because from the ‘shop floor’ it doesn’t particularly feel like it, unless they’ve got something going on they need people to cover, like big parades and provide jobs.
What is an “allocation failure”?
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