That’s absolutely my experience as well.
She certainly did: bomb sizes, CEP’s, aircraft serial numbers all went in… The Wing Shooting Officer was green with envy, but was an excellent sport and asked to her to do a 5 minute chat at a wing shoot about the experience of doing the OP, managing the bomb run and talking the GR4’s in.
Brilliant kid - she joined the Army…
Did they get a DH on target though, and if they did, did they get a marksman’s badge?
Well I’ll pop this in here - RAF Cadet right here… and I’m joining the Royal Navy (or at least hoping to do!).
Gee, I wonder…
Damn well hope so!
*Sharpshooter’s badge
What would be the qualifying distance - the distance from the GLD to target set, or from the GR4’s to target set?
Direct hits, the targets were 3m x3m.
Two bombs, 30 seconds apart - First bomb DH, shift laser to second target 200m (or whatever, fairly standard training package) left. Second bomb DH.
OP to target would be be between 2-3km, GR4’s would drop from 5k or so. Straight overflights, weren’t allowed to do toss bombing… 
Do you think you could get something like that approved today?
Real life or DCS?
Definitely no to both 
I think HQAC, and a good many regions, would literally pass out if an application/proposal like that landed on the door mat.
I think you’d be lucky to get permission for a Sqn to visit a gun line on a training area, let alone to stay with them in deployed field conditions, or to fire the guns, or be involved in the targeting or plotting.
I even think that you’d face questions if you were at a training area doing vanilla stuff, and your Sqn was offered a flight in a wokka, and you took it.
I think the objections would have three angles: 1) ooh, that’s a bit ‘warry’, 2) ‘that doesn’t sound very safe…’, and 3) that you made a decision without getting permission.
It’s genuinely my view that there’s a cohort, and not a small one, of senior people in and around the org who genuinely believe that the best work the ATC does is in the classroom…
Double check that paper cuts along with ink, plastic (pens) graphite and wood (pencil) ingestion is in everyone’s risk assessments?
In a way, it’s worse than that - they believe that the pinnacle of the cadet experience, that thing that defines the point of cadets, is sitting in a classroom learning about cyberz, or airspace battle management, and very much not some kid from Craptown climbing a VDiff on a sunny afternoon in the Peaks surrounded by their mates, or the grey kid who sits in the middle and who’s spoken about 5 words in 3 years at senior school who takes control of their DofE Bronze group when a kid sprains their ankle, it becomes obvious they’re lost, and it starts pouring down with rain, and sorts out shelter, who’s starting, who’s going for help, and working out where the hell they are.
We all know those cadets, we’ve all seen those cadets who’s lives have been transformed by the opportunities to grow that the ATC can offer.
I am genuinely surprised that cadet units are still allowed to open when it’s dark…
Very much so, especially the ones that start off as little mice, but all of a sudden, they realise that they CAN do “x” or “Y” & blossom accordingly.
The classroom experience isn’t challenging - you can try to add more stimuli to the lesson areas, but it’s an uphill battle.
I was that kid. I could do the academic stuff with my eyes closed, but years of bullying and social awkwardness meant I never pushed myself outside my comfort zone until school forced me to do a year of CCF. Suddenly I grew in confidence and started doing things I’d never have considered before, then I joined ATC as well as carrying on with voluntary CCF. If it had been the academic organisation that HQAC seem to want these days then God knows how much worse I’d have turned out.
I had a tiny 15 year old Cpl who was good but lacked confidence so didn’t assert herself as best she could or speak up.
That is until a fieldcraft weekend where she was 2ic to another Cpl from another Sqn.
She was tired frustrated & fed up with his faffing turned into a fiery demon & let rip - got the cadets into order quickly, kit stowed away fed & everything sorted very, welfare dealt with pure no nonsense leaving the faffy older cpl & bit goldfished.
She never looked back, was an excellent NCO would have been CWO if it wasn’t for Covid & working on becoming a barrister after finishing uni.
Cadets generally want to get away from the classroom routines and do something different.
The volunteers generally want to get away from the classroom routines and do something different
And they’re wrong.
Either that, or they really urgently need to amend our motto to “Boredom, Insanity” or some such.
Don’t get me wrong, with reference to your comment later on, there are cadets who love that classroom based stuff. I enjoyed my Air Reccie (argh! Air Sqns Trophy Air Reccie and being able to score 30/30 was glorious) and sometimes find the idea of tabletop exercises very appealing (make your own minds up)
But there was that insatiable itch to get out, doing Fieldcraft, Flying, etc. It’s like Army Cadets and TIBUA (going around built up areas) - you cannot get enough of the stuff (and I will attest to how keen they get!).
While it is probably quite inefficient to indulge in both worlds endlessly, there’s clearly a sizeable contingent of cadets and staff who want to get out and about.
Anyway, apologies for offtopic, best resume!
Which is where we are significantly better off with our new Commandant who is a man that gets Adventure Training as opposed to his predecessor who seemed to want to spend all his time hiding under a desk.