CCF Officer-Saluting Courtesy

I believe it is custom to salute the most senior officer on the parade square upon appearing on parade. But here’s a problem - junior officers tend to arrive first, and senior ones later. So say that I have just saluted an Lt and a Capt appears. Do I salute him too as he is now the most senior? And if the Maj appears after him do I salute him too?

Short answer: yes.
Technically the Lt and Capt should also salute the Major when they arrive :slight_smile:

There are many versions of “appearing on parade” depending on how/why you are parading, but if the first officer is taking over from you in charge of the formation then it is no longer your problem :wink:

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You should salute all officers no matter of their seniority

If you’re talking about being on parade and officers are arriving separately and not together walking towards you, then yes you would salute each one as they arrive.

I have precisely one officer who remembers that - and he was a regular Army officer before becoming a teacher. It shows.

Everyone who walks past salutes the officers no matter of their rank bit also you may get an Raf vechicale with flags all officers or ic salute that I got caught out once when one drove past and I was looking the other way

You can’t be expected to have eyes in the back of your head. It pays to occasionally look to see what is going on around you incase someone really important has walked up, but there is always the possibility that you will miss someone. If you see them, you salute. If you haven’t seen them then you haven’t been discourteous, you just haven’t seen them.

Should I explain that I am on an raf base and if we don’t salute officers it gets fed back to the boss and especially where my sqn located there are lots of officers going in and out

It doesn’t matter. If an officer walks behind you and you have no way of knowing they are there, you can’t be expected to salute them. As an officer, I certainly wouldn’t expect it.

You mean you don’t have a fanfare to announce yourself?

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Giminion, pictured early 2020.

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No, why pay a for a fanfare when a batman is supplied at no cost?

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Technically yes. As a cadet you need to salute all comissioned officers regardless ie if they are an plt off or the Air Chief Marshall (Using raf ranks as an example) you still would salute them.
This comes with some caveats. If the Air Chief marshall is walking towards you and the Pilot officer is also walking towards you, you should salute the air chief marshall as they are the higher ranking officer. So in your example - if the Lt and Capt appears you salute the captain if they are walking together and when the Maj shows up you salute them as well, as should the Lt and capt.

Now… if you are parading the most senior person on parade NCO most likely giving drill commands will bring the section/flight/squad etc to attention and only they will salute the COs whilst you just stay at attention.

And just remember, if you’re an ATC officer, regardless of rank you salute a CCF officer

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Depends if they are nice to me or not :wink::wink:

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What?
Are you saying a Sqn ldr RAFAC with the ATC has to salute a Plt Off RAFAC in the CCF?

You need to read up on your regs!

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Maybe.

But I’m not even sure most CCF know 5% of the regs…

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and that is about as much of the regs that have been written to acknowledge their existence :slight_smile:

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The topic of master cadet gets raised a lot in these discussions and I take the view that if the ATC has access, then the CCF should have access. There are exceptions to this. For instance due to a lot of CCFs being boarding schools, junior leaders and QAIC are more difficult to attend and I understand that.