AT Quals and the Faff that is

I fear if we’d binned off the greens and AT, we’d not get anything much to replace it. We’d be left with the syllabus training, some flight sims and a bit of drill. And drill would start to look a bit out of place in what would then be a pretty academic / aviation focused set up. A drone flying club with marching?
I know you’re being devils advocate

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Already a thing; people can apply to SCC and ACF AT courses. I did most of mine with the ACF as the dates suited better.

Yes I agree.

But if it were replaced with a full and comprehensive (and funded!) drone and model aircraft syllabus…

Where nav is in classification replace with air traffic control and airfield operations.

Link in with more industry partners for training and delivery, across commercial, biz av etc etc.

Fill the gaps with thought out aviation training.

It does leave the RAFAC without a “soldiering” aspect for sure…

What do people expect from us though? Probably what we tell them to when they turn up on their first night…

The ones it appeals to stay, the ones it doesn’t don’t. It would be a very different looking RAFAC for sure.

Like I say, just a thought.

On my LLA training (RAFAC run) the majority of people were RAFAC, but there were a couple of ACF and CCF guys too.

Not necessarily a bad thing, but as you say very different. The logical path would then be to civilianise the organisation. Better leave it there or split the topic before the admins confiscate our wine though

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As others have said, this is already in hand in many areas. I have done several CCAT courses and have observed some SCC courses for CPD, as well as attended some modules they ran and opened up tri-service.

I routinely push CCAT courses to CFAVs in the Wg (as well as local private NGB courses) alongside HQAC sponsored courses and those in other regions/wings. The more opportunities I can present to CFAVs, the less valid the excuse of “there’s never one available” becomes (alongside the “you never tell us anything”).

Likewise, we already have ACF and SCC on our LLA and previously BEL courses.

Wouldn’t have many staff left either, we have far more staff interested in DofE, AT and Fieldcraft than we do in Classification Training. The fact that most Wings struggle to get Staff to go on Blues Camps or to take Cadets Flying (to the extent that they’ve had to make it a Promotion criteria).

Considering that flying is one of the smallest activities that we offer these days (we had 12 AEF spaces and 0 gliding spaces in 2019) can’t see many Staff or Cadets hanging around.

What would everyone’s thoughts be on moving to a Frimley style structure for all cadet forces, it covers all training including At, Mil Skills and Staff etc

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I would prefer a tri-service regional approach. Some regions could them be more focused and aligned to what their specific venues/areas/facilities/instructors - but all should be able to offer basic level courses.

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That is incredibly distressing.

And precisely what we should be moving to fix.

Gliding at the moment is indefensible, to the point of embarrassment and AEF needs more capacity.

I find it shocking the amount of missed AEF placements though through bad organisation…

Ultimately flying should have the biggest priority placed upon it.

There’s no excuse from above for 0 spaces offered.

What concerns me is that the training syllabus has extra items plugged in to fill the gap.

If every squadron should have a flying and a gliding allocation each quarter. Every cadet on squadron that wants to fly in a year should get an AEF and a VGS place.

We shouldn’t be saying oh well no flying let’s do some AT.

I appreciate what you say re. Staff, and maybe the answer is the same as to cadets; want to shoot or do mountain walks, join the army cadets.

We shouldn’t take our eye off the aviation with at as a sticking plaster for a terrible aviation record - aviation, that thing we are all meant to be keen on as an air minded organisation…

But AEFs are being contracted out to deliver EFT at the moment and we’re also pre covid

It wouldn’t work in its current state, AEF and VGS need fixing.

That said, I think there is an attitude fix needed on squadron. As a wing in a previous year we wasted 12 AEF places on a day as squadron OC’s saw a wing field day competition as a higher priority than getting airborne - those OC’s need their heads checking.

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Maybe I have a different perspective as locally to me there is generally very little AT anyway, we struggle as a wing to cobble together enough staff for a bronze d of e!

That ship sailed 9 years ago when Gliding died.

If my Sector lost all of the staff who weren’t Shooting, AT or DofE minded first and aviation second (if that) you would be lucky if you could staff 1 Squadron.

On an average year my Squadron will get treble the number of DofE Awards than it will flying spaces as a minimum and I would say far more Cadets join my unit based on the offer of DofE and AT than for for the Flying.

To be fair the current capacity would be fine with the number of Staff and Cadets you would have left in the organisation. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

That’s the reverse for me: I had 24 AEF spaces last year, and a handful of d of e quals. We have the only lowland leader in the sector on our squadron, and we struggle to team up with others in the wing.

You are sadly right!

Again sadly right!

Sorry to sound like such a Richard about it… it just frustrates me the lack of flying and “proper” aviation we offer… and it turns me into a bear with a sore head when I see the excuses for missing AEF places, knowing how much like hens teeth they are.

But back on topic :joy::joy:

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Part of that comes down to the Wg Flogo telling the AEF for planning to avoid that date

Or if it’s unavoidable arranging a minibus and staff to take Cadets so that squadrons can focus on the field day.

That was the person before me. An organised WAvO should be evenly distributing opportunities, and be able to overcome that.

In fairness it worked in our favour, we sent out four and they got over 3 hours flying between them as no one else turned up!

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I was thinking more of pooling our AT courses to maximise their use.