I wouldn’t hold your breath. There are still major hurdles that need jumping over. When one embarks on a major changes, one needs to engage the stakeholders. As each day goes on, it is becoming clear that this hasn’t been done outside the three HQs. Optimistically (and sadly), your statement is only true if you are an Air Cadet in reach of RAF Syerston.
If we have 1 site providing 10 GS a year that’s still better than 0 sites providing 0 which is where we are right at this minute.
I’m not saying it’s good and I’m not saying it’s been handled well. I’m saying it is what it is, stop whinging about something you can’t change, stop dragging the organisations name through the mud in the press and worry about things you can influence such as the overall cadet experience you can give to tie cadets.
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I’ve just been chatting to and ACF major who was saying that the ACF are [WETTING] themselves laughing at us. When gliding stopped they didn’t really see an increase in membership, but this last week they have, in her area alone, seen a large amount of enquiries for people to join. Time will tell how many are ATC cadets but the only thing which has changed is the negative and untrue stories which are rumbling around on face-tweet-agram.
There is a huge difference in mere “whinging” & asking why sub-optimal performance has resulted in this calamitous change to the VGS organisation.
There are big gaps in what has been presented over the last 2 years; perhaps a review of the circumstances & closer scrutiny of the characters involved will be beneficial. After all, if the planing ability was suspect over the last 2 yrs, how solid is the current plan…? What factors have been missed? A paper plan of blitzing the VGS facilities in order to centralise resources may, at first sight, seem attractive for reducing costs. However, if the staff & cadet aspects have not been factored in (probably not - was anyone surveyed about longer travel times, increased duty, overnight accommodation, etc), the plan is already showing weak points.
But the petition isn’t going to lead to a closer look, all its going to get is a response saying “we understand the concerns but it’s been looked at in-depth and this is the best route forward” or words close to that effect.
At the moment the bad press that volunteers who supposedly have the best interest of the cadets at heart are doing more physical harm to the organisation, it’s credibility and its appeal with the negative press than the pause and cuts have ever done.
This announcement has understandably caused a morale issue, but with the staff not the cadets. The majority of the cadets have never had any gliding so don’t actually miss it.
Those that want to go gliding will find a way. Over the past few years, several cadets from my Sqn have been awarded ‘scholarships’ to learn to glide with our neighbouring gliding club - this is a scheme that has been running between the gliding club and local school for some years now. It is something that we are not involved in, but do point the cadets at; the choice being an 1 1/4 hour journey each way to any of the nearest VGSs which are closing or 10 mins over to the back of the airfield.
I appreciate that not all gliding clubs will offer such opportunities, but it is worth trying to find out if you have a club in your local areas do such a thing (just keep away from our club! lol).
The VGS system up in my neck of the woods has been a bit of a joke for many years and I would say that the “pause” has largely gone unnoticed. Any cadet here who is serious about wanting to learn to fly should get themselves to a local gliding club or flying school and not hang their hopes on the ATC as we have not been in a position to do anything significant in the way of reliable flying training for a long time.
While GICs seemed to work out almost 50% of the time, getting a GS seemed to be a pipedream and there were many factors at play, including accommodation problems, poor weather extending courses, staff availability.and airframe availability. More recently a lack of fire cover meant the VGS staff had to man a landrover with a fire extinguisher in a trailer to enable any flying.
I am interested to see how a reorganised 6FTS will provide gliding opportunities for my cadets. I also hope that the ACPS will get rid of the foolishness of expecting cadets to have done a GS as a prerequisite as this does nothing to spread the opportunities as wide as possible.
The Royal Warrant for the Air Cadets is:
a. To promote and encourage among young people a practical interest in aviation and the Royal Air Force.
b. To provide training which will be useful both in Service and in civilian life.
c. To foster the spirit of adventure and to develop the qualities of leadership and good citizenship.
Therefore these objects are best achieved under a single catalyst which is exposure to actual flying. In recent years, the VGSs have given cadets the best practical exposure to aviation within the RAF. That said, the activities open today are nothing compared to what was available pre-late 1990s. For example, Flying Scholarships were the Holy Grail giving cadets full PPLs. After they were scrapped, they were re-introduced a few years later under the early version of the ACPS due to much objection.
Remember when there was a petition when cockpit flights on commercial aircraft were stopped? No, me neither.
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When was that? It certainly wasn’t the case in 1988.
Before 1998, Flying Scholarships were 45 hours. The requirement for a JAR-PPL. They were re-introduced in 2002, at 12 hours.
I’m struggling to see where cockpit flights on commercial aircraft are referenced as an activity in the Royal Charter. Anyone help?
In 1988 (when I did mine) they were 30 hours, requiring an additional 8 hours ( IIRC) at private expense to make up the CAA’s minimum requirements for PPL at that time.
If the RAF didn’t fund a PPL back then I would be surprised that they funded it when the CAA raised their minimum to 45 hours. I thought they had actually cut it to 20, then alter to 12.
Promoting a practical interest in aviation.
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Without full and diverse flying training opportuities how long can we justifiably refer to ourselves as AIR anything? Which then begs the question on our long term viability.
I love this organisation and have seen what the effect of going gliding or powered flying on hundreds of cadets. Listening to cadets speaking about their day gliding or flying excitedly was a real fillip. This is followed up by parents telling us that they haven’t stopped talking about their experiences on flying detail or gldiing detail, is not replicated for any other activity.
I wish with all my heart that the people running the organisation were doing it voluntarily as they would be in it for the same reasons as us.
The cockpit flights went years ago and were always a bit iffy as they would rely on seats being available. Losing them as I recall was for commercial reasons and having had cadets go on they were a nightmare as you couldn’t easily get last minute replacements.
Daws the damage to the Corps has been done to the Corps by the people supposedly in charge. which for purely personal reasons they didn’t like being discussed outside the organisations.
What The Sunday Telegraph article and the petition does is take it outside the Corps and quite ably displays a lack of capability in the RAF to fix some basic aircraft to the wider world. If it means youngsters and parents don’t consider us as an organisation worth joining so be it.
In the SC shooting email trail from last year it was stated we have lost c3000 cadets in the preceding couple of years and was why CAC begged Air Command not to stop shooting in the Corps. That situation was due to HQAC knowing we had to have SC and not CTC and hoping it would go away. When you see statements like 15 years of no proper maintenance wrt gliders it wouldn’t fill you with confidence, BUT we didn’t get any gliders fall out of the sky, so by proper was it
Without a viable flying programme for at least another 2 years, times are going to be hard selling the organisation. The ATC without flying for2 years is like McDonalds not having burgers for 2 years and still expecting people to go in to the shop and wait on the promise of burgers tomorrow. Which is where we have been since Apr 14 and remain for the foreseeable future.
Utterly wrong. It was due to the army inventing the requirement for a select bunch of people (CFAV) needing to have a security vetting way above what is actually required. SC gives you access to material most don’t get. A slack handful of weapons and never on your own with both (mostly) isn’t regular and uncontrolled access to Secret or occaisionally Too Secret. The RAF knew this and pushed back but the army being “the army” insisted. All it did was create a whole load of work for no gain. Waste of money and time thanks to the green brethren.
A shocking attitude there my friend. You should hand in you ID card and do one. You don’t speak for me or my cadets/future cadets so please don’t ruin it for the rest of us who would like to stay part of this (slightly dented) organisation.
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The suggestion that the lack of regular, in-house flying training means that we can no longer consider ourselves an aviation-based youth organisation is laughable and preposterous.
Our syllabus and activities are still largely aviation-based and we will continue to meet the aims of the ATC even if we never set foot in a real aircraft, though of course I fully appreciate that it is better if we can.
We are not the Flying Cadets nor the Flying Training corps. We never have been.
The amount of flying that used to be available to air cadets many moons ago was largely a function of the number of spare aircraft and money the RAF had and the lack of consideration for many aspects of safety. Times have changed significantly and this organisation has changed with them. We are in a position now where we have to see what we can provide under the present oppressive safety regimes with limited budget while playing third-fiddle to an MOD and RAF that we are too reliant upon for our own good.
Was it badly handled? Yes. Somebody in Main Building deserves to be hauled across the coals for that.
Will fretting over it do any good? Nope. Suck it up and help make the best of it.
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Outside the organisation as a whole nobody knows or cares what is going on, by highlighting these changes as if it was the end of the world we are deterring people from joining the organisation.
If thats your attitude I suggest you resign, cal it a matter of principle and pit the gliding situation down in your letter of resignation.
Not having gliding is not the same as not having flying at all, AEF is still running and we have been getting more of that in the past 2 years than in anytime in living memory. As I have pointed out before the majority of cadets have never had gliding anyway due to the average 18 month life cycle. We are past the point where cadets actually miss it as they have never had it. The only people who really kicking off about these changes are staff members who are living in the past and who aren’t adaptable to change and the VGS staff (Who are quite rightly upset).
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So what are we without a tangible flying aspect to our activities? We are not the Air Training Corps, Air Cadets or RAF Air Cadets.
I agree that what we ‘teach’ is aviation based, BUT there was always the opportunity to see that theory in practice. I remember sitting in a Chippy and watching for what I could of the control surfaces moving. Sitting in front of a simulator (as we are being told we can do) is all well and good but at some point you need to get out of the virtual world. There is little point in learning PofF and not seeing it in practice.
The amount of flying we got was never massive, BUT it was available and was the icing on the cake. I’ve never heard cadets talk about anything else we do, in the same way they did after AEG or AEF.
I always considered the ATC as THE premier youth organisation because of the opportunities we offered and the ‘special relationship’ with the RAF. I bored people rigid with my eulogising about this organisation and queried why they let their children join other ones. My wife and kids have all said I’ve been quiet about how good the ATC is recenly. This has been tainted in the last two years. The fact that a number of cadets haven’t been flying (in any way) and are unlikely to is not something to pass over with a throw away like they’ve never had it so won’t miss it, it is a fact that should be lamented and in an organisation that is supposed to give young people that experience is unacceptable. We like all other squadrons have been filling the bits of time unfilled with flying as we have been forced into accepting that situation we have.
People will make their decision whether or not children can join on whether or not we can deliver our main activity. Parents aren’t stupid, they are the ones we need to convince that we are capable of delivering what it still says on the tin and they will come to this conclusion based on what WE as the ones supposedly in the know tell them. It would be disengenous, insulting and lack integrity to fob parents off with the political rhetoric of HQAC or avoid the flying question altogether and ramble about other things. We (who come under 5 AEF) have to deliver something positive in actual flying terms and that has to come from HQAC pulling their fingers out, which they haven’t been able to in the previous 2 years.
My cadets have not had AEF to speak of for over a year now, with all the problems of no pilots at 5 AEF, pre and post move from Wyton, before it was binned altogether last summer and still no resolution.
What we need from HQAC and 2FTS and 6(?)FTS is a proper project plan with milestones etc to get all flying back to normal or the new normal. Otherwise they can carry on as they have been, which is feeding us lies. We were told gliding would return in 2015 and then 2016, but because of the incompetence of all involved these passed. Now who knows? They still don’t as they still don’t have anyone with the capability to fix them, even the reduced number.
The problems in the Corps do not lie with the volunteers, it is the people getting paid very attractive salaries. What ever we do or offer is at their behest.
Flying in the ATC hasn’t stopped. You are experiencing a local issue which is clearly frustrating but that doesn’t give you a green light to tar the whole organisation with the same problem.