You may be aware that options for the recovery of the glider fleets were presented to CAS on Monday. CAS and his senior staffs were absolutely on board with the need to salvage as much as possible from the glider recovery programme and they share our increasing frustration at the lack of progress in recovering airframes and getting cadets into the air. Despite the costs of recovery, they remain committed to gliding as a core part of the air cadet experience and, based on that commitment, have agreed to invest significant extra funds to let a contract to recover the Viking glider fleet as soon as possible. This will hopefully bring the Vikings on line quicker than current funding plans allowed.
In terms of wider plans for VGS basing and Vigilant long-term recovery CAS has asked that further work be done, hence no final decisions were made on Monday. The AOC is actively tasking key individuals with taking this work forward but it is likely to take some months before all the necessary costing evidence is available to satisfy CAS, DRes and others on the proposed next steps. In light of this further work the AOC and Comdt agreed that calling all the OC VGSs together was a potential wasted journey, particularly as some will travel long distances to reach either of the 2 venues. In simple terms, you need to know what ac will be recovered in what numbers and where they will be based. As we cannot answer those questions today, the briefing at RAF Syerston on sat 24th and at RAF Linton is postponed. The planned roads shows at Kirknewton, Linton, Cranwell, Boscombe Down and Halton are also postponed. You will be advised in due course the revised dates.
Thanks for that tingger, so not much gliding at all anymore. That was a main selling point for me when I joined as a cadet years ago, it’s going to be hard to recruit the newbies without a USP like gliding! Hope it gets sorted sooner rather than later.
And 1AEF who cant fly weekends also for ever as the Welsh Government own the airfield at St Athan and won’t pay for the airfield to be open on weekends.
Latest social media update from the Cmdt, no mention of gliding…
I replied thus:
Thanks for the update - some interesting aspects of ACO “life.” However, without gliding in the ACO sphere of activities, the ACO “life” has deteriorated. There has been little or no update that has fiiltered down from Cmdt 2FTS to the grass roots, especially in relation to the latest high level meetings (that were cancelled), so please can I suggest that a detailed update is promulgated for all to CFAVs be advised of the current situation. Many thanks.
“It is very difficult to advise on glider recovery as options are still subject to very senior authorisation. We had hoped to announce the endorsed way forward this weekend but were unable to do so, hence the canx of the VGS briefings”
This farce just gets better and better all we need now is Brian Rix to appear sans trousers and it will be complete.
It cannot have just been anytime recently that it was known or realised that senior authorisation would be needed to get anything done. This was going to be expensive from the outset and need someone high up the food chain to green light it and to now be waiting on a senior signatory for one way or the other, is a nonsense.
Everytime you see or hear something related to this, the sighs get bigger and bigger and a sense of being continually let down grow, especially as we are powerless to do anything to get it done.
I would just like to have something definitive to tell cadets and their parents about what is happening and when gliding is likely to be back on the menu. It looks like Apr 16 (which is what I have told people) is out of the window, unless something spectacular happens. In professional circles it can’t be doing our senior officers any good, given they have failed to get some non-engined aircraft off the ground again after 18 months and still counting. It wouldn’t look good on a CV or be a positive talking point in an appraisal.
Mind you I imagine in MoD circles this project is probably going splendidly according to plan and on target for an OTIF completion, with an expectation for gongs and promotions.
OC 3FTS became Comdt 3FTS about the same time Wg Cdr UAS was promoted to be head up 6FTS. So It seems to be a policy thing.
It’s interesting that even with the major issues affecting the Tutor it is (pretty much) back to “ops normal” (although that isn’t the same as pre Haddon-Cave/MAA/2009 incidents “normal”). It’s also interesting to note that of course OC 3FTS and 6FTS are regular officers. Read into that what you may.
There should be no need to bounce things up the chain. However, amongst other things on a big list, the protracted timescale, action (or lack of), information flow (or lack of) has come across as sub-optimal - not just to one or 2 individuals, but to a huge number of CFAVs.
