15000 cadet sorties flown. Due to the no shows the available slots would be about 16500ish
Control and/or structural failure
Mid air collision
Most of us are quite adamant that in the event of a abandon with a cadet we would make sure our cadet was out before we went. With a small cadet I would physically take them out with me.
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Where do you get those numbers from?
Your own slides show less than 300 opportunities missed from no shows…
15,000 + 300 does not equal 16500…???
This is the reason to my understanding.
Historically at any rate.
Fully serviceable aircraft with dead pilot.
Flying straight and level the cadet stands a good chance of bailing out.
Pilot and ac are disposable.
Most?
That is the minimum I would expect.
The cadet either bails out or you go down with aircraft trying to get them out or buy time for them to get out.
Just as if there was a fire in my Sqn. If the register shows a cadet missing. Regardless of personal risk, I am going in to get them. I’m not waiting the 8 minutes for the fire brigade.
That is a completely ridiculous post to make. Who are you to tell someone how to act in that situation? Is it any wonder people don’t want to post on here where they’ve got posts like that criticising someone in a hypothetical situation for possibly prioritising their own life at the expense of another’s?
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I think what he’s saying is that:
slots = the total maximum possible, given aircraft and manpower.
Sorties = the actual number of trips in the air.
Lost opportunities = slots that were not turned into sorties.
If the lost opportunities = 1,500 slots, then 15,000 sorties, plus 1,500 lost opportunities = about 16,500 slots.
Edited to add: Sorry, I just re-read the post. The slides they posted are from a 2FTS FOI release, so those numbers are from VGS allocations, whereas the 15,000 figures I’d assume are AEF internal ones.
I am.
As much as I like to think I’m a cross between Tom Cruise / Jason Statham I’m not the hero running into the burning building.
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Same.
I’d do all I could to ensure that any missing cadets were accounted for, but I certainly wouldn’t risk creating any more casualties.
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I don’t see how this is controversial. Ever since the St Athan debacle back in 2009, we have spent at least an hour at every AEF allocation I have had ensuring the cadets can exit the aircraft solo in the event that the pilot is dead or incapacitated.
The inference of that policy being, in the event the pilot is dead or incapacitated, the cadet leaves them.
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No inference here. I’ve been told pretty bluntly the last AEF before I aged out that if the pilot goes unresponsive to bail. That was the briefing from the AEF staff. But as a senior cadet that can push the radio buttons and ask for help, like hell would I bail.
I should add that would have been a number of years ago and ap[appreciate that may not be quite the same any more!
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Even One of my CIs with 10k hours for BA and ex CFI at Bournemouth commercial flight training was told the same.
Don’t bank on the cadet using their initiative. There was a double fatal glider accident at Husbands Bosworth, about 15 years ago, where the instructor may have suffered a medical episode, (he had a severe heart condition).
This resulted in the glider spinning into the ground from height. The 15 year old student made no attempt to abandon the glider on the way down to the ground.
Being in the front seat, he couldn’t see the instructor in the back, and it is presumed, he never recieved a ‘bail out’ call. He just sat there until they dived in.
Why the hell was he instructing then? Is that a silly question? This is not my area of expertise but that seems like a bad idea…
I suppose the whole thing comes back to the old “How often are parachutes actually going to be usable?” but with “How often are pilots blacking out?” instead.
Not sure there are many people, let alone children, without a good amount of experience that would realise what was happening in time and then be well drilled enough to do anything about it.
I’ve never been to a VGS and seen a glider fly at a height useful enough for a sucessful parachute deployment.
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I get that being the default fall back option, but ultimately then the aircraft will crash, likely into the ground, but possibly the sea. How many people will be killed or seriously injured on the ground as a result of its impact? That impact may be avoided or affect seriously reduced by some small actions by the passenger, with the passenger still jumping.
Not wishing to sound to brash and full of bonhomie better placed in a movie, but I know full well what I would have done as a Cadet if this happened to me, or indeed now as Staff if I was lucky enough to get a flight, and jumping out isn’t at the top of the list!
You need to get to better VGSs would be a half decent jump from 8000
Any chance we could ride a thermal all the way up to the topic again? As tangentially relevant as crashing is, let’s focus on the flying bit 
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