That is £1.400.000 if winches sitting in a £8.500.000 hanger for the non-provision of a core ATC activity. That is £10.000.000 for the provision of the square root of sweet FA. Assuming we have 40,000 eligible cadets that £250 per cadet. That could have bought a lot of gliding from other sources.
Don’t forget to add the private four bedroom house which was built for the Station Commander.
we have we got two line winches??
I admit as a Cadet i was at a Vigilant VGS but as a civi i have used 6 drum winches…what is the logic of having only two drums? VGSs aren’t exactly small operators, they are launching at least one ac every 20 minutes …?
Cant remember the exact details, as it was some time ago - but at RAF Bruggen Gliding Club in Germany, even if only using a single winch option, the launch capability was quite fast.
00:00 - launch first glider.
00:02 - cable dropped safely onto ground.
00:04 - cable attached to back of recovery vehicle.
00:05 - cable back at launch area.
00:06 - next launch in progress
You could cut about a minute of the total time if you could anticipate the cable drop location, not difficult to do at all.
Even with cadets involved (much looooonger ago!), it was a launch every 10 mins or less off one winch - & that was when the T21 Sedbergh was in use - 5 mins per circuit if you were lucky! 
The idea is when you break you 2 drum winch Saturday morning you can use the second winch sat next door to the first to still fly the weekends task before Skylaunch come fix it Monday morning.
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ahh right that makes sense
£800K for a new HQ must mean they’re getting a portacabin.
Nothing is chap now DIO are in control. Fees and fees and consultancy… Daylight robbery.
We we’ve been told of squadrons getting new “builds” costing £400K and they are in effect large portacabins that come on the back of a lorry and craned into place.
So £800K is probably 2 of them joined together and not the palatial setting we might imagine.
It does seem somewhat crass to do this when there is no real need for a gliding HQ, other than an small office in a building that already exists.
What, like the old tower at Syerston?
Don’t think so - design costs were £28,060.00, & the building is quoted as “modular” - layout sketch 28m x 9.6 m.
That ain’t 2 porta-cabins; that is a good sized building.
OK, 4 x TN154 portacabins stuck together then 
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I’ve been reading this for quite some time with interest. As an ex gliding person I’d say that yes whilst this situation that the VGS system is in is a bit rubbish a few points need to be made.
All of defence is hurting, as long as the aco wants to be in the RAF its people wear the uniform and similar then it’s going to make changes too.
If front line units are hurting for hours and aircraft I’m sorry but VGS will have the same. We are losing whole fleets of aircraft and the stuff that CAS and AOC 22GP is so big that to be brutally honest what’s happening with a few gliders won’t figure in their everyday work.
It was mentioned earlier in the thread why could the tutor get fixed so quickly but the gliders aren’t? Once again I’d suggest that the reason is without tutor, pilots don’t get to the front line and sadly the main effort for the RAF is projecting air power, not VGS, AEF, or UAS. As long as the ACO is part of the RAF then it’s always going to be forgotten or prioritised over by the senior officers.
Just think about what we are also asking The duty holders to carry as a risk. This is the world where aoc 22 has to sign off on sports and AT when cadets are on a base or where for a squadron to take kids flying in a helicopter you need a wg Cdr to auth the flight even though there is no high risk flying. The VGS system was asking for people to send kids flying with potentially another cadet, with no training beyond what they’ve had from the VGS instructors, so no external examination from CFS for every single pilot.
I haven’t even touched on the inaccuracies and lack of understand of some of the paperwork and assurance issues that people have explained here.
Lastly I’d say the suggestion of FOI requests is not helpful, all that will result is somebody who could be doing other work having their time taken up answering that request, and then feeling apathy towards the people that submit it from the organisation they are trying to help. If it was me in that staff job I’d pretty quickly loose patience with it.
/rant off
FAA you’re wrong mate. The ACO and delivering air experience at the basic level is fundamental to the strategic survival of the RAF and the future of air power. It should have huge political clout and very high visibility.
Any staff officer or commander doing his/her job properly shouldn’t have the slightest concern about the duty holder system or FOI. If they do, they are not fit for the rank and post.
Had the required information been disseminated to the rank & file (even in a semi-diluted way), there wouldn’t be the need for any FoI request(s) - which may actually reveal the depth of the various issues. There certainly seems to be a level of non-disclosure at the moment.
The dearth of information is very poor; the timescale for lack of credible action is even worse.
Currently, the ACO has more cadets/staff than the total of RAF personnel; the ACO is seen as an important provider for RAF recruitment.
Mmm, maybe. You’d need to speak to the recruiters at Cranwell to see if that is true - but don’t submit an FOI request, as they actually have better things to do.
The point is, even with a dearth of AEF and UAS flying, and even less VGS flying, people will still come through the AFCO doors. So it helps and is a great tool that we are lucky enough to have in our country, but not fundamental to the continued survival of the service.
I wouldn’t say that we are a recuiting device for the RAF but if we are to continue as a viable organisation “promoting and encouraging among young people a practical interest in aviation and the Royal Air Force” then we need to have aircraft / access to aircraft in order to do this, because and it makes no difference how you try and dress it up the Royal AIR Force, which includes the AIR Cadets, is indelibly in the pysche of the general populous linked to flying and aircraft. We don’t remember/associate; marchng up and down, worrying if your creases are sharp, shoes shiny, uniform fits, if you have a badge a fraction of an inch out of position, the ‘right’ sort of uniform, ticked a few boxes on a form and the plethora of minutae we as an organisation get overly excited about, we remember as a collective things like the Battle of Britain, Vulcans flying thousands of miles to bomb an airfield, the Dambuster Raid and all the other notable operations of the RAF and the AIRCRAFT and come of the people who flew in them. It could be argued that in the modern era with flying not having the mystique it once did with people flying thousands of miles in a metal tube for a holiday, that flying in the ACO is not as exciting as it once was, but getting hands on in a 2 seat aircraft and manoeuvering it around the sky still has an air of excitement. I don’t know many cadets who after a session at an AEF or VGS weren’t quite excited about it.
Yes things are difficult but it is not us that needs to decide, it is the RAF that needs to decide if it wants the ACO to figure in its future plans. If they think it does, then the RAF needs to pull out the stops to make it continue for which we need a viable and sustainable flying element. If it doesn’t then make 2016 the year to end it and say after 75 years that’s it or 78 if you include the ADCC. Having numerous reports compiled, holding meetings and so on are stalling measures, someone with the appropriate number of rings and scrambled egg, needs to make a decision and commit the resources. The other pressures of the modern RAF and defence make this impractical or even impossible, then make that decision. How long can we carry on with the promise of jam tomorrow? Can we really exist for too much longer without a viable and sustainable flying element at the core of what we do?
Maybe the grand plan is to engineer downsizing the ACO to make it fit better to the 34000 (figure quoted on Festival of Remembrance last night) regular RAF personnel, than the greater number of personnel in the ACO as a whole, as currently we are bigger than the host and this situation will remain the same, unless something is done to redress the balance.
I’d suggest that the RAF delivering ACO flying is a nice to have but saying it is fundamental to its strategic survival is a bit ambitious. I’d say that it developing f35/typhoon capability, continued a400m development, being able to send a c17 anywhere in the world with aid within 24 hours and providing continued world class support helicopter operations is fundamental to its survival, in the the eyes of the public and of the politicians. Let’s be honest the parent organisations actual role regardless of viewpoint is to allow UK PLC to have an effective foreign policy be it by violence or humanitarian effort.
The fall out of the UK flying training system is that cadets go flying, it’s great and should be embraced. But what I am saying is that in the world we are in now where everyone is accountable it would be a bad show for the aircraft to be sent flying without the paperwork being watertight. Imagine the unthinkable happened and the PM or CAS or CAC has to stand infront of a camera and explain why it was rushed back into the sky without every single component of the aircraft having a history of its production.
If I was a betting man, I’d also be willing to say that the ODH and SDH levels are potentially uneasy with the situation I described above of kids flying with G1 or even B2 levels of experience. I’ve been in that position and at the time I was happy with it, looking back i was very very inexperienced, and while it was a simple aircraft I’d go so far as to suggest a guy straight out of EFT is better placed to ale good airmanship decisions. I know it’s not practical to have every VGS pilot have the same level of training as a QSP but still look at the reaction when AEF has gone wrong in the past and that was a pilot with more extensive training.
The best solution id suggest is a possible return of Viking so gliding (a cheap and reliable way of getting guys in the air on a tight lead) and an uplift in the amount of AEF / air experience flying that is available. Once the tutor is replaced I see no reason why the aircraft couldn’t be kept for that sole purpose and potentially flown by QSP’s and civilian QFI much like Barkston Heath’s current setup. That way the ACO could offer a much larger FS scheme, taught by approximately CPL and above level qualified people, and the style of flying remains “military” unlike if BGA is involved.
All I’m trying to say is that it’s frustrating yes but the people that make the decisions beyond CAC eg ODH and SDH type level have much much larger fish to fry.
Mike,
I know that the lack of information is frustrating but this is the military where occasionally you find out your on ops from the news before the chain of command. It’s not a justification and I think that a FOI for gliding updates is justified after the long wait. The suggestion of one for building costs and others mentioned on this site and PPRUNE aee the type of things I alluded to.
As mentioned earlier in the thread, it could be physically impossible to locate relevant paperwork for modifications, etc, as the timeline for retention could easily have been passed. Even under EASA standards/requirements, the mandatory limit for retention of paperwork related some engineering items is only 3 yrs. If the RAF is trying to take the airframes “back to birth,” this will not be possible. This should have been apparent 20(?) months ago.
As an ex-military person, that was the case on several occasions - although it was quite rewarding in the Bruggen Tornado Sim to set up 4 Iraqi airfield tgts for crew trg well in advance of the official order - when HQRAF staff came across to tell us of a super-secret requirement, they were appalled that “we knew in advance.” Nope, practical assessment of potential options was very simple!
However, in this case, there is a huge difference between salaried military personnel & ACO volunteers. The salaried group have to put up with it; if the volunteers don’t like it, they can leave.
In fact, the statement “practical assessment of potential options” should have been applied a long time ago in this lamentable case.
6FTS… It’s like someone’s seem that coming. MFTS has only ever been fragged to replace EFT, so UAS/AEF were always going to become separate.
Taken from the 20121201 –ACO FLYING and GLIDING STUDY
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