Also, generally, the Viking is not an inclusive aircraft.
We have cadets with limited mobility. For some, flying may never be an option, but the majority could fly with aircraft designed for easier entry, such as by having a fold-down body panel.
Opening up flights with civilian clubs also enables RAFAC to be far more inclusive than it is currently trying to claim it is.
Living in the merseyside area when you apply the junior filter to the BGA website itâs 90mins travel in any direction to get to somewhere that will take under 18s. I was looking for crazy jr during lockdown. Of the 2 in north wales near the Wirral one is private glider owners only no experience flights at all
There is still a club not that far from Blackpool that does AEF flights and juniors.
Previous incumbent has moved upwards.
As an AEF pilot, he was obviously super-keen on cadet flying. Sadly, donât see how the new one will have a similar drive - or challenge any ârisk caseâ put to him by his minions.
Thatâs still better than perhaps 3+ hrs - & of course, in addition to any travel costs, the duty driving time / rest has to be considered. Putting all the eggs in âbig basketsâ might look to be efficient for the âproviderâ but itâs counter-productive for the end user.
There will also be the knock-on effect generated by late weather decisions - will the VGS make a weather go / no go decision the night before, on on the day? For a 0900 hrs (or earlier report time), it will be an absolute kick in the teeth to be 2 hrs into your drive & be told that flying has been cancelled.
Same for last minute cancellations by a sqn for whatever the reason - low probability of getting the slots filled?
Iâd much rather the AEF makes a prior day decision to cancel and it turns out they could have flown, rather than an early morning check of their Facebook page to see whether itâs on or not.
Itâs better for CFAVs, parents and cadets to have the certainty one way or the other.
Very true - but depending on the location / forecast(er) that they are using, this is not always so simple.
Some interesting data from this year:
I have allocated 42 AEF slots to squadrons in my wing.
36 have been cancelled. 30 to weather, 6 to operational issues.
Just 6 squadrons have flown in 2023.
Those 6 would likely not have flown if the decision was to be made the day before.
The aim was to offer every squadron an AEF sortie per quarter. But the weather already plays havoc with this. I would not be a fan of making this worse by deciding ahead of time.
This is just part of aviation.
As a VGS pilot its sadly not as simple as that.
We usually open by 8am for cadets to arrive after 9.
During that time we have building checks, vehicle checks, caravan checks, winch checks, aircraft checks, parachute checks, weather checks, currency checks, staff training, cadet briefings, cadet training, cadet and staff egress training.
The amount of paperwork is not funny, It takes a team of about 8, 3.5 hours to get it done to get to a flying stage.
You need a certain number of staff with certain qualifications to opperate.
Eg you need qualified winch opperators - If you then want o fly you have aperiod of being grounded due to the fatigue of working on the winch. If the cable breaks on the winch it usually takesa good half and hour to an hour to repair it inbetween the launches.
You need people who can be the launch point supervisor, the duty supervisor all of which requries aditional traning. You need pilots with certain gradings to fly the different levels of wings.
Ontop of that you have staff that need to remain current which takes aircraft.
While this is all ongoing you have FSC and ground staff training the cadets on the flying sylabus, doing the preflight weight and parachute pull tests. You have the egress training for emergencies. Then you have the issues of getting them to the aircraft getting them in and happy. Trying to prevent them kicking components of the aircraft which places that U/S sometimes.
After the flight you then have the issue of you need drivers who are trained to drive and tow gliders all of which is more training. Then pulling the aircraft back slows the opperation. Once your back at the launch point you have the checks that have to be done prior to flights to be done again.
I could go on and on. The work the VGS staff do after visiting cadets leave is also very similar to the amount of work it starts to get setup.
We have to balance numbers with staff burnout, as at the end of the day if we get burnt out no one flys. Its all about saftey at the end of the day, so we cant fly everyone but we do try and fly as many as we can.
I hear you.
But Iâm suggesting a 4.5 hour window in a working weekend day 50% of the expected time available shouldnât sound a challenge.
Not suggesting its a case of rock up at 0900 and leave by 1330 having completed the flying day (cos Iâve done VGS details and its a 0830-1630 day).
What im suggesting is youâll never fly 100% of the available dates planned. 50% is quite pessimistic yet it allows for all the faff that keep the ac and pilots in the airâŚ
That is what im basing this offâŚof course that âflying windowâ gets easier (or shorter) with two ac and pilots available
3.5 hours 
blimey is only one of the eight qualified
So in reality as well as weather, continuity training and serviceability problems you actually need more staff for the VGS to expand operations on site?
My speciality⌠
The trouble is, if unrealistic tgts are set, with insufficient resources (which we donât have anyway!) to take into account tech / weather / instructor sickness, whatever, then you are planning to fail.
Even prior to the âpauuuuuuuuuuse,â there had to be annual statistics to show planning versus reality percentages. Adjust that for the 2023 circumstances & re-plan.
Eh??? At Bruggen gliding club, we normally repaired a cable in about 10 - 15 mins. Exceptionally rare to have a major issue that required more time than that. We would normally run 6 - 8 gliders all day.
Thatâs management of resources. I would be surprised if anyone could say that they get fatigued working a winch. Commons sense says one person doesnât sit on the winch all day. I actually found it better to do a longer period as you had got the âfeelâ of the winch & the local wind conditions = often better launch heights.
You have also added a group of arguments that point to the relative simplicity of organising flights in non-Service aircraftâŚ
Iâm pleased someone else thought that. I assumed my memories of cable breaks at civvy clubs were being rose tinted. But I thought it took minutes to fix.
Thats 8 people doing different tasks.
Everything needs to be countersigned usually. So its twice the work.
You have the pilots, the ground staff, the execs all doing their bits for the day and it just takes about 3.5 hours inlcuding a staff briefing.
Eh??? At Bruggen gliding club, we normally repaired a cable in about 10 - 15 mins. Exceptionally rare to have a major issue that required more time than that. We would normally run 6 - 8 gliders all day.
It takes time as there is usually only one winch opperator due to staffing levels. So they have to get the broken weak link take it apart/splice and thread the cable back together, jump back into launch for a few minutes, jump out, repair, jump back in ect. then it has to be coutersigned by another winch opperator for saftey reasons so its getting someone down to check it. Its not the most efficient process but its about saftey.
Thatâs management of resources. I would be surprised if anyone could say that they get fatigued working a winch. Commons sense says one person doesnât sit on the winch all day. I actually found it better to do a longer period as you had got the âfeelâ of the winch & the local wind conditions = often better launch heights.
As above, its due to staffing levels. The winch opperator needs to be watching all the time to get aircraft up into the circuit as there is windows of opportunities. The winch is all about managing the winch speed, anticipating the aircrafts behaviour, reading the cable and what its doing and looking out for other aircraft. We are on a busy overfly area and its often civis dont shout up so we have to always be watching.
Then we have to get the cables on the ground and usually run up to the drag a few KGs of cables up and down to get them lined up correctly put the hooking straps inplace for the vehicles and get back in doing all of the above all the time.
Its not as easy as just sitting down all day its quite labor intensive.
At the VGS I am at, most winch opperators are the pilots so we swap round for pilot and winch fatigue reasons.
You have also added a group of arguments that point to the relative simplicity of organising flights in non-Service aircraftâŚ
I dont know much about this but look at Tayside aviation, for them to get signed off to fly RAFAC cadets they had to be inspected by the RAF central flying school. So its not as easy as just sending cadets to fly there. It has to meet the high standards of RAF flying.
In a respectfull way. Until you are directly flying as a pilot/working as ground staff with a VGS or AEF unit its difficult to see the lengths we go to get cadets flying. Its not a simple as it looks and we dont have the staff to opperate. Plus loads of our staff work shifts so the staff we would have had on the books is not always a true representation of actual staff. Usually we opperate with 6-8 staff and 2/3 FSCs.
1 duty supervisior
1 pilot flying cadets
1 doing winch
1 doing retrieve for the aircraft
1 supervising the movement of aircraft on the ground
2 staff usually doing renewal training
This leaves 1 staff member and 2/3 FSCs. We make it work but we have less staff than local units for what we do.
Grandmother, eggs, suckâŚ
In the good old days, pre-pause, cadets / CFAVs would be involved of some aspects of the gliding operations. Good for appreciation & a little extra team work.
Pre- a loooong time ago, ACPS awards were carried out at the nearest suitable approved facility, not (sorry Jocks! 
) in the middle of nowhere. Safety is paramount but RAFAC (itâs not just one part of the flying organisation) is unnecessarily protective, insisting that MAA safety standards are linked to civilian CAA & BGA approved facilities. Thatâs not feasible.
Our sqn was the first (Iâm pretty sure) to use the provisions of ACTO35 to get gliding - I had had to ask for gliding to be included in the document. Why? Protectionism? Who knows. Stupid not to add it; cheaper & more available locations.
Civvy under ACTO 35 was broadly used across our wing for a short period iirc.
No one ended up in hospital.
In the good old days, pre-pause, cadets / CFAVs would be involved of some aspects of the gliding operations. Good for appreciation & a little extra team work.
They are with us, however roles like the winch opperator or retrieving aircraft in the vehicles require them to be a qualified winch opperator at our SQN. And to retrieve aircraft they need to hold a valid FMT600 covering our rangers and then undertaken training to retrieve as its not as simple as just pulling the aircraft as you have to set the vehicle up in a specific way so its not too fast and is in the correct driving mode.
Usually visiting units will help with the launching element but thats about all they can do due to the training required.
Perhaps all these loopholes you mention is exactly why weâd be better outsourcing gliding