2 cadets solo with “C” wings… 0 launches at VGS with current bunch.
We’ve got a ridiculous number of C wings but we have some very rich parents so probably not a good representative sample. One girl got a Cessna for her 17th and a Phantom for her 18th (I hate to think what the insurance on that is)
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Don’t suppose any of them fancy adopting a 30 year old man child?
Get behind me in the queue
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F4? 
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Jesus. What the actual.
Part of me is jealous. Part of me pitys the stupidity of that family.
2 ways for that young girl to end up hospitalised or worse…
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Not sure why you’d suggest that as long training and regulations are taken on board and adhered to…
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Or a fantastic opportunity?
Although my advise would be steer clear of aviation and do what mum and dad do!!
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Don’t we send cadets solo after 9 hours? Surely being Solo in an aircraft she owns and knows all about it better - and I assume her parents arn’t just sending her. My dad had a PA28, I am still to this day sure I can land, take off, fly, operate and troubleshoot that aircraft despite not having been in it for over 10 years as we used to fly every weekend.
Ok, back on topic please.
not as impossible as you might imagine.
ok the minutiae of hours of one Vs the other isn’t going to be straightforward but…
if you look at the badges, where blue badge is just getting in the air with the organisation and C is going solo outside of it that alone would be interesting data.
give our VGS is only excepting non-blue wing cadets (ie complete newbies to gliding) every flight they are doing results in a badge so the hit rate will be quite large.
whereas the C wings requires training to solo level at a guess similar to VGS so ~8-10 hours.
for every C wings = 10 hours
for every blue wings = 20 minutes
so to be even, for every C wings you should expect to see 30 blue wings - unfortunately it tends to be closer to being the reverse for many of us!
I can honestly say I’ve never seen a single C wings in my Wing.
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Nor me.
Someone replied back to the response from 2FTS with valid and reasonable points.
The reply… Has left something to be desired, imo.
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Does anybody think the RAFAC / RAF would be held to a higher standard for flying than any other youth organisation in the country?
I’m sure that’s what the RAF think and we’ve seen one of the AEF members of this forum spout the same, doesn’t make it reality though.
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I think it’s complete garbage. If, heaven forbid, anything happened the news would be “child <something’d> in plane crash”. Being a cadet wouldn’t feature, the force would be even less likely to be mentioned.
Cadet dies in mid air collision in an ACTO35 operation.
Ambulance chasing lawyers, the press and the MOD bashing keyboard warriors (social media is full of them just waiting for this kind of thing to happen) will immediately question why every single thing we mandate for an AEF / VGS operation wasn’t required for an ACTO35 operation.
“People moaned at us on a forum so we just kissed it all off” won’t wash it.
Most of the external companies go above what is required of the VGS/AEFs AFAIK.
And anyway, if a cadet were to die in any activity, the lawyers/SM talk etc would be no different to if it happened in an AT event. Cadets sadly have died in air related incidents in the past being run by the MOD (not ACTO 35) and the media was all over it.
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Don’t know about AEFs but would expect the checks and balances in the Serco contract to be more stringent than what the volunteers are required to do by the BGA.
Let’s take medicals for example. Anyone flying AEF or VGS on a Class 1 medical has to have their GP medical history reviewed and certified every year. Not done for civilian pilots for their Class 1 (and many instructors out there will only hold a Class 2 in any case). How do senior officers just ignore the increased medical incapacitation risk? They’re not going to.