Completely beyond my point, being that we regularly get told something is a quick pause, or a quick policy change, but then takes ages.
Pretty sure they said that in the middle of last year too 
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I’m not part of the process, but it sounds to me as if there are some massive over-complications involved from above; involving the MAA and all sorts.
Like I say, I’m not involved, just asked the question as summer is around the corner and it would be good to get some outside drone operating done in the nice weather. But not this year was the answer.
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Which the ACF appear not to suffer from?
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It would seem so.
Different parent service, different risk appetite from those assuring activities, different attitude.
Different organisation.
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It is bizarre. Fundamentally the ACF are governed by the wider MOD. JSP 814 covers both of us. If someone goes wrong and people get sued it’s the same MOD department dealing with it no matter if it’s RAFAC or ACF. So it really amazes me that we seem to have such different approaches to risk across the two organisations. Not just talking about obs course but loads of stuff.
We seem to have two full rank structures split at the highest level, yet by the time we get down to the bottom level, the people in the middle have made completely different decisions.
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Maybe time to have a shared upper level team across the whole cadet forces, whilst still allowing individual units to follow single service traditions and focus their uniform and syllabus accordingly.
We could refer to it as something like “the Combination of Cadet Forces”.
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Which is fine, if we are delivering the training ourselves, it when they have the governance for the whole thing it seems mad to not play by the same rules.
Just playing devils avocado.
But it may well be the same MOD department that gets sued and pays out, but it’s the chain of command underneath that is shouldering that risk and lose their jobs.
The army might be fairly relaxed about it, taking a view of its unlikely, hey no worries.
The RAF might be paranoid about something being their fault, so lock it down.
I’m not saying this is the case. But I can see how things could be different, despite it being ultimately the same at the very top/the same pot of money when it goes to rats.
Hearing the commandant air cadets speak recently it seems as though he is very open and happy for challenge to be pushed upwards. And if anything encourages it.
I wonder how many people push beyond the local area to find out more. Quite often project leads are listed on IBNs etc.
Maybe if those owning policy received more challenge more would change. Maybe it wouldn’t. Just thinking out loud.
Sadly I’ve found pushing back higher up, when those directly above me don’t want to, often leads to getting in trouble.
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Just to remind & reassure, the highest rank is flying officer & in terms of risk the chain is WEXO=>RCOS=>RC=>COS=>CAC.
Legally speaking there is no chain of command amongst the volunteers just the illusion of one.
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Combined Cadet Formation? It’ll never work!
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Reality is a very different thing, people can always make life difficult in other ways.
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What I’ve stated is the reality, However what people perceive to be the reality is a very different thing.
In volunteer world we often have to deal with perception than reality 
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Been saying this for years. Purple ‘Joint Cadet Force’ HQ with region or wing HQs reporting direct to a purple structure.
On the original topic, though, what about use of obstacle courses by cadets but supervised by qualified regular instructors? (As we have an Army base nearby and have been known to use theirs.)
Our OCI qualified staff gave up trying to keep the quals up to date anyway about 3 years ago, not worth the hassle.
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Schrödingers’ Quals mate - CFAV’s have to mirror service quals and processes in order to be valid, but service quals and processes aren’t valid in the ATC…
I’m fairly sure there was a full course of CFAVs
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Could be, though I thought there was about 20. Could be remembering wrongly though…
I was and used them a lot…