Sorry to go completely off topics, but with regards to what Teflon said about ‘attractive salaries’.
I just came across a vacancy to work with the ACF as a Cadet Executive Officer and is commissioned role in the ACF (not regular or reserve).
I saw the benefits of this job and the salary was over 35k! and 30days annual leave?!
my question is, is there roles like this within the ATC? if there is full time roles like this then why is the planning and admin so poor when they have full time staff? and with regards to money, its too much of a salary for a role like that…surely if they want to save money then this should be scrapped?!
just imagine doing something you enjoy in your spare time and getting a full wage for this
5 AEF have started flying at weekends again but is nowhere near the volume as it was at Wyton.
We’ve started to reallocate slots away from a neighbouring AEF to help the rest of the Wing; and guess what they moan about the distance they have to travel…
sorry this maybe a local issue but AEF up and down the country is having “local” issues, flying at our local AEF near me hasn’t happened now since January. 1 sqn had to travel to another AEF and managed to get their first flight in 3years due to various issues.
NI wing are up in arms due to having to travel across then find out it’s cancelled.
Each local issue is a problem… For the corps
How long before they decide to centralise all AEF flying? It would be the next logical step to solving all these “local” issues 1 base, all aircraft…saves costs
12AEF are ticking along nicely, though they are quite thinly spread.
NI wing has a particular set of difficulties but how justifiable is it to site a whole AEF in the province to support just 17 units when 12AEF has around 100 units to look after? (I can’t get the cadet numbers from the system. I wonder how many airframes they will have.
6AEF are doing a great job, we’ve only had flight cancelled due to the weather and that can’t be helped. They have also taken to offering extra flying details out mid-week for those who want it.
As a nursing student, I can vouch for that petitions do very little as shown in our recent struggle with the government over our NHS bursaries. This is similar to the junior doctors contract disagreements.
Although, I’m not entirely sure how this problem can be appropiately dealt with other than give the cadets the best experience we can with the resources that we have.
I’m glad to come back 30 odd messages later to find that I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Washing the ATC/ACO’s dirty laundry in the public domain does nothing but damage our reputation. Anyone who thinks it’s a good thing or that it’s drawing needed attention to the problems is bang-wrong.
This is why there are people who are paid to think about media relations and public perception. Clearly there are some people who are too short-sighted to see the ramifications of this sort of outcry.
I must also join those snubbing out this notion that we cannot be the AIR Training Corps unless we are flying.
How many people join the Royal AIR Force? How many of those people are aircrew? Compare the numbers.
There is much more to both organizations than just flying. Of course, being able to offer unprecedented levels of flying experience would be fantastic. It is however unlikely, so we must continue to focus on pushing all the other opportunities that we can.
Down our way I’ve noticed a significant shift in personal ambition. Where once if you asked those who plan to join the military what they want to do you’d have seen a flood of responses for “Pilot!”.
These days the responses are far more varied. RAF lawyer; Chef; Gunner; PTI; and lots of people are keen to become engineers it seems.
Yes, we all want to continue to offer flying but it is not the be-all and end-all of our modern organization.
Let us remember why young people come to us… It’s not specifically because they want to learn to fly. We offer “experience” flying not full-on pilot training. If they want to learn to fly they pay for lessons, or they join the Services and learn via that route.
They come to us over the Scouts for example because they want the military influence. They come to us over the other Cadet forces because they are interested in the RAF.
So instead of griping that we don’t offer the same limited number of 25 minutes flights that we used to let’s focus on showing them ALL that the ATC and RAF has to offer.
Just been forwarded by the response to the petition by one of our sector staff
"The Government has responded to the petition you signed – “Save UK Air Cadet Gliding”.
Government responded:
The MOD has confirmed plans to relaunch Air Cadet Aviation to ensure cadet flying opportunities are available whilst delivering value for money.
Air Cadet Gliding had to be paused in 2014 due to safety concerns with our aircraft. A full inspection programme was initiated with a view to recovering all of the aircraft. However after substantial operational, technical and commercial negotiations with a range of leading aerospace companies, for most of the Vigilant aircraft and a few of the Vikings it no longer represented sensible value for money to continue their repair.
In order to give Cadets the opportunity to start flying again following an Air Cadet Organisation review there will be at least 73 Vikings, a fleet of up to 15 Vigilant aircraft, combined with an increase of an extra 25 Grob Tutor fixed wing Air Experience Flights (AEFs) – a more than 50% increase on previous flights. We are committed to returning as many gliders to the skies as possible while ensuring the safety of cadets and instructors. For the first time this will be backed by a range of realistic simulators provided by the RAF Charitable Trust.
The restructured glider fleet will be operated by fewer, but larger, Volunteer Gliding Squadrons (VGS), which will have a regional focus and be better integrated with synthetic training and increased AEF locations. The RAF is fully committed to Air Cadet flying. Where Cadets will have to travel longer distances, we are increasing investment in VGS and AEF sites to include residential accommodation for cadets and staff. In the future cadet flying will be better associated with force development and ground training opportunities alongside the gliding and flying.
The RAF acknowledges this has been a tough period for cadets and instructors and is grateful for the patience and understanding of the Volunteer Gliding Squadron instructors who continue to provide inspiration and leadership to generations of cadets. Air Cadet flying will be safer and far more resilient in the long run; enabling all cadets across the United Kingdom to have equal access to flying opportunities and which better integrates and allocates cadet flying opportunities between realistic synthetic flight simulation, glider flying and an increase of AEF flights.
Ministry of Defence"
Pretty sure it’s what I said it would achieve, the last paragraph of the Telegraph article but with more words!
[quote=“daws1159, post:109, topic:2234”]
“For the first time this will be backed by a range of realistic simulators provided by the RAF Charitable Trust.” [/quote]
It’s a nice gesture and all but YAWN unless they are the fancy pants simulators that Military/Commercial pilots can use to regain currency then I can’t see many cadets being impressed with that as an alternative.
The MOD statement was like my mug when I came to work this morning … empty. It held the promise of something warm and pleasant, but was empty, until I made it to the teabar.
It says much but where is the timeframe?
How long will it take to realise this?
Given how parlous public sector budgets are unless this gets done in the next financial year and the money spent, we could very easily be in the same situation and getting the same comments next year, the year after and so on. I can imagine everyone will see this as a negative position to take, but it is the reality, not some dream world inspired by some MOD minion putting together a statement for a minister to spout. I wouldn’t get excited about it until the MOD, it’s out of scope for HQAC, issues a timebound project and indication that the money is allocated. I get paid around the 21st of each month but until I’ve checked my account, it’s not worth spending it.
We all know the platitudes in the statement as it is what we constantly hear.
Saying the RAF is more than just people flying can be applied to every job. Not everyone who works in a school is a teacher or hospital a doctor or nurse or coalmine a miner etc etc etc etc. However as an adult you choose to the job you want to do in that organisation / environment to suit your skills and knowledge. However as a teenager if you join an group as a ‘hobby’ you would expect to get to do what they say they do. If you joined football team you would expect to play football not just learn about playing football. If you joined a band you would expect to play an instrument, not see pictures and be told how to play an instrument.
Young people don’t migrate from Scouts for the military influence the parents like that because the schools are crap at instilling discipline (I didn’t need the military influence for discipline when I was teenager) and because they have largely exhausted the activities offered by the Scouts. The interest in the RAF is minimal, but the opportunity to learn about flying is still up there Only one of my current crop of cadets wants to join The Forces and isn’t fussed which one. As yet though in 31 years as staff I’ve never had to have a youngster say they want to join us to get a first aid badge, if they wanted that they’d join SJA or BRC, or shoot rifles or ‘soldier stuff’ (I’ve had several cadets join the ACF as we don’t do enough shooting or ‘soldier stuff’) but get a chance to fly yes. I’ve had several Army Cadets join for that reason as the shooting and soldier stuff wasn’t doing it for them.
While flying may not be the be all and end all of the Air Training Corps, our name implies doing things with / in aircraft and our publicity says we do gliding and we don’t do it, in the commercial world trading standards would be all over you like rash for misrepresentation. If a label says this product will enhance, improve, has this or that in it and you can’t prove what you say, it comes off the shelf and in extremis could result in fines for misrepresentation. Companies don’t spend millions on consumer research, trials and analysis for a laugh.
You mug will remain empty until YOU decide what you want to put into it and how. Much like this organisation. Don’t expect your CEO/Managing Director/Head/Director to fill it for you.
What else did people expect?
The response to the petition was exactly what we knew it would be - the truth, albeit a rosy version of it, and exactly what we’d already been told be the CoC.
What a complete waste of time the petition has been achieving nothing more than damage to the reputation and more rubbish in the media telling the country that Air Cadet don’t actually fly.
Did some of you expect that they’d throw their hands in their air and say “OK guv, you got me… It’s all a lie. We were going to take away all your flying but now you’ve made us see the light. Have 1000 new gliders to say sorry.”
Next job for HQAC - Repair the damage that’s been done.
Really? You think that flying is the only thing any cadet is interested in? Do please give us your explanation then as to why we attract and retain the level of cadets we have considering how little they will have flown.
Cadets join us for many reasons but the one thing the cadet forces offer over other youth groups is the military influence. That’s our USP.
[quote=“Teflon, post:112, topic:2234”]
he MOD statement was like my mug when I came to work this morning … empty. It held the promise of something warm and pleasant, but was empty, until I made it to the teabar.[/quote]
You mug will remain empty until YOU decide what you want to put into it and how. Much like this organisation. Don’t expect your CEO/Managing Director/Head/Director to fill it for you.[/quote]
But you would expect the company / organisation etc to provide (not tea or coffee) the wherewithal to do your job and give you deadlines for achieving the things they say they will do and keep you properly updated. I’m expected to work to SLAs and deadlines for doing things and if I’m not going to be able to tell someone, not just not do it and then blame it on something else, that didn’t exist previously and is largely unrelated to the initial task. The fixing of gliders 2 years ago wasn’t related to basing reviews, but it became a convenient foxhole.
What I said was it’s the parents that want the military influence more so NOT the youngsters, as schools are poor at instilling discipline. The youngsters will join for any number of reasons, but getting told do this or that ain’t one of them. There may be a few around the country, but I’ve never met one in 40 years in the Corps.
When I’ve spoken to Scouts, in particular, the over-riding theme is do something different and the flying is one of the things mentioned they join to do. I didn’t join the ATC to shine shoes, put creases in trousers, shirts and battledress or any of the other things regarded as ‘military influence’, they were things to suffer to get the chance to do things. I don’t work for the love of it, I do it for the money ultimately. I enjoy what I do and we have a good camaraderie which makes the periods between pay days sufferable. If I won the Lottery and it was enough I’d leave work in a shot.
The reason we retain cadets is more to do with mates and doing things together, be that on the sqn and elsewhere. It kept me in the Corps when my mates at the sqn left the Corps. You see this when one or two from a group that forms leave and others leave not soon after. This happened when I was a cadet and has been a constant throughout. I’ve seen some very odd groupings in my time that have resulted in an exodus.
I knew exactly where you were coming from, but the discussion here is about the inability of our CEO / senior management to provide the tools to do something we expect to do as an activity. I know people say we do other things, we do and always have done and do them all the time, but there is and has been a gap in our provision, which they have failed to address. This isn’t one of the peripheral activities (FMS, shooting etc) it is one of the things that makes us unique and in comparison to other things, easy to do from a sqn perspective, as you just turn up, unlike many other things that require faffing around with ‘paperwork’ to get permission to do it. Saying we have to put up with this for as long as it takes them to sort it out and carry on like it doesn’t exist, is just what they’ve done for the last 2 years.
If you worked for a company and the CEO/management team just sat back and did nothing to address the problem for not being able to provide one of your key products or to do your job, then they’d be sacked by the shareholders or a smaller business would close.
