We don’t have the aircraft.
I thought we did now, but they’re all just sitting in one big warehouse somewhere? I remember seeing a SM post a while ago, but I may well be wrong.
Its like you’ve seen the commandants plan
That’s all bga clubs only 36 support/offer junior gliding though according to the BGA club finder
I bet that would soon change with the award of an MOD contract!
Only 36 is still 4 times the number of VGS!
But again BGA does not equal VGS and some would still be a huge trek for some sqns and potentially not have service accomodation close by.
It maybe the case of 4 times as many site but if all airframes were recovered, 60 according to 2017 statement,with say only 40 in use at any one time, 5 per vgs. Assuming that all 36 clubs were willing and able to provide an aircraft dedicated to RAFAC every weekend operations were possible the VGS would still offer a larger number of aircraft available for Cadets.
A lot of the BGA clubs even have a waiting list already for the experience flights and have a limited number due to needing the aircraft to maintain their existing operations and meet the needs of their members.
Looking at things logically a complete switch may see the number of cadets who flew increase overall but at the cost of solos as they would need to allocate a single aircraft just to experience flights.
I wish it was as simple as you appear to think it is but I can’t see it personally which is why I said maybe some sort of hybrid is needed.
The maps show clearly the location of VGSs roughly correspond with being central to the clusters of BGA sites and I can’t get the BGA sites to show only junior sites, on my phone as least, so it would likely as I pointed to earlier not resolve the huge travel times for some to be able to access gliding.
As BGA Clubs are ran as a business, would they be after recompense for missing out on pure cash, in the above case a prepaid voucher; if not will RAFAC/MOD be prepared to pay this shortfall for the BGA Club? And this would interesting to see which pot any funding would come!
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I couldn’t see why it should be a problem pushing the cash from 2FTS into a pot given to the BGA and whatever money is allocated to powered flying to a similar pot for cadets to use flying clubs… If it means cadets actually benefit from it, it has to be a better use of the money, over whatever it is currently getting spent on.
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So, the solution is thus.
MOD declare all gliders as unserviceable, (again).
MOD declare recovery of gliders uneconomical.
Wait for a cooling off period and time to do some backhand deals.
MOD sell glider fleet, (and those nice new shiny winches), to BGA with the help of a Dept for Transport grant!
Each BGA junior club gets at least 1 ex-MOD glider, 2 in most cases, ringfenced for air cadet use.
I’m not sure if anything like this has been tried before with MOD aircraft???
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Indeed very positive, which would mean it’s not necessarily the “system” that is broken. if it is achievable in one location there is no reason it can’t be the same in another. That would be down to individual groups of volunteers and the way they’re implementing what is available to ATC and CCF cadets.
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From the Air League, after my enquiry:
As the virus has introduced some delay in this year’s flying scholarships and bursaries, which means that they have not yet all been completed. As a result, there will be a delay in the opening of the window for the 2021 scholarships.
I should be getting a heads up for future timeline.
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Thanks - let us know here (or by PM if you can’t…)
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Can we buy them back with a DfT grant?
It would be more like us to buy them back at an inflated cost using money we don’t have from our current budgets.
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anyone free to fill in a LIBOR grant by any chance??
I am sure there is money still in the pot left unspent
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New IBN released which basically tells us nothing at all other than “no change”.
Well, at least the author followed up on my suggestion to issue a new IBN, that is a good sign. However, It stills seems that there is this barrier of “Duty of Care” issue - when CAA / BGA provide legal oversight of the facilities that they control / monitor.
I messaged 2FTS yesterday to query the areas within the “AIR CADET COUNCIL 2 FLYING TRAINING SCHOOL REPORT ON RAF GLIDING” document that don’t match up with current factors.