Last annual camp my cadets attended in 2019 was on a flying station with an AEF. The cadets could see the Tutors flying for the whole week but didn’t get a sniff at flying in one. Back in the day flying was almost a guarantee when you were on annual camp, particulalry if the AEF was on the station you were at! Its a bit insulting for the kids to watch others fly but not get to do it themselves.
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But if you give slots to cadets on camp then local cadets will miss out - not an easy call either way.
It works out of every annual Camp has AEF built in at a National level, as you don’t get a local detail but you get one on camp. It’s when not every camp is at or near an AEF that it falls down.
Fair point.
As a cadet I went on camp to AEF stations twice. Once the majority of the camp flew, on the second only about 2 or 3 who were squeezed in before the AEF’s local allocation turned up for the day.
Sshh. Don’t tell 6FTS or they will ground all the Tutors until they can fit it…
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WRT the survey what is the point of asking cadets?
Only a very small percentage will have ever been on an AEF/VGS and done any flying and trying to form policy based on the views/opinion of a group the majority of whom won’t be around by the time RAF have extracted their collective thumbs let alone do anything vaguely useful.
Even for staff if they started post April 2014 how many have been to VGS for flying, to be able to give an opinion, the same could be said for flying.
It asks about the cadet experience rather than the staff expectation of the cadet experience. It looks at what information gets to them, how it gets to them and how it can be improved.
The staff have a specific view, they might assume things about the cadets that are not correct. Personally I think this will actually help by giving the cadets a voice rather than a small number of vocal staff being the source of all ‘information’.
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The problem is the lapse between getting the information in this case survey responses, and actually doing something with it that makes a worthwhile, noticeable and credible difference. Something that the RAF/HQAC have an extremely poor record for.
Never mind give it a couple of years you can repeat the exercise for something else to make it look like our management doing something
If nothing else changes, the cadet experience won’t change, so it doesn’t matter if those that tell you what that experience is then leave after giving their views.
You use that feedback to create changes for the next group.
It’s like pensioners voting in referenda - their view still counts.
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2FTS have been clear in their internal comms to their own staff, to the Region Aviation leads and to the Regional Commandants - they already have a team made up of volunteers and permanent staff, and with senior management support, working on this.
Have you read the survey?
There are only 2 questions about RAFAC provided flying (and one of those also allows you to submit questions about civvy flying). Basically “Have you flown before?” and “Do you want to fly/fly again?”
The rest of the survey is about scholarships and careers in aerospace. TBH, I’d rather 2FTS concentrated in getting the basics right, before starting to meddle in cheerleading external courses and careers.
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True - but what about previous feedback / surveys that haven’t really generated any subsequent action(s)?
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2FTS’s remit is wider than most think. Going back to the original email that was circulated. This is what they are doing:
‘2 Flying Training School are conducting an exercise to benchmark the cadet aviation experience and to identify areas where action can be taken.’
‘The questions are designed to help us understand the drivers and limitations for all cadets applying for flying and gliding opportunities and their understanding of their access to information. For example, it has already been identified that there is less take up of flying opportunities by female cadets and this will help us understand why this is.’
I read the email too.
Like I said, there are two questions about cadet flying. They are:
“Have you flown before? (excluding commercial passenger flights)”
And:
“If you’ve not flown before, do you want to fly? Or if you have flown before, do you want to fly again? (excluding commercial passenger flights)” with a space to submit a reason why not, if that was your answer.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m struggling to see how those 2 questions will help 2FTS understand the drivers and limitations for cadets applying for routine flying opportunities?
Page 2 of the survey is about scholarships, and page 3 is about careers.
The conclusion I make from this is that 2FTS are not interested in feedback on the majority of flying or gliding opportunities we offer our cadets(AEF, ground school/PTT, and blue and bronze wings).
I get that they want to ensure that ACPS is open to all, and that fostering links to industry isn’t a bad thing. To be honest, I don’t care how many fingers in pies they have (JM’s Aviation academy springs to mind…), but if they’re not delivering the basics, then all of the other stuff is just fluff.
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What about it? Are you saying it’s pointless asking because of the risk of zero change? Contradictions in feedback? Already asked once so no need to ask again just act on what was said before?
It may be fluff to you but it’s not necessarily fluff to the cadets who want to get a positive experience out of this.
Has anyone looked at the cadet survey, I’d guess the questions are different, else it would be a single survey link for all.
Which cadets? The 50 cadets out of 36,000 who get a place on the ACPS? Or the Cadets who apply for external scholarships (where being a cadet isn’t a pre requisite)?
What about the other 35,500 cadets? I guess 2FTS isn’t bothered about their experiences (or lack of)?
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I give up. Your negativity and utter refusal to accept this may be positive for the cadets has beaten me.
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