Oooo you suspicious character. I like you. You will do well here.
ONS are dumping a load of delayed statistics reports into the open domain tomorrow according to my friendly hack. There could be something in there, but traditionally “a good day to bury bad news” means a third party issue which causes prominent headlines.
I didn’t say it wasn’t a problem - just one that’s existed for longer than some would want to realise.
As for my Sqn, no, nothing after our local VGS closed in about 1996! As a cadet we didn’t even know there was a another one affiliated to another Wg that was actually closer…
Anyway, taught me not to rely on the CoC if you need something, and to sort it of your own back!
The Savile report from the BBC is out today. Will that count? He was an Air Cadet, I have seen his name on some recruiting literature. So there is a connection.
Be careful Big D, try not to play into the hands of the very powerful folk who would like to see the back of ACO gliding!!! That poor cadet has indeed missed out but about to time out after 6 years with no gliding, did he need gliding?? If we can keep cadets to the maximum age with no gliding does that mean we don’t need gliding?.
Of course we want gliding but be careful, their are people out there who would love to see the back of the whole thing.
Lose gliding and that’s effectively the end of the Air Cadets. I suppose that will free up several £million.
I could easily use any newly gained free time and not find myself thumb twiddling.
We’ve been doing OK despite not having any gliding for around 2 years and, for years before that, effectively having no gliding.
I want to keep gliding (OK, really I want to keep powered flying, not that winch-launched nonsense) but it is quite expensive and we could lessen the impact of its loss if we got access to proper synthetic trainers (again, not the crap part-task stuff) and there was scope to get real flying through some other avenues without 2FTS and the risk-averse people interfering.
without flying/gliding, i see little point the ACO continuing as a seperate organisation. what, after all, would a flying/gliding-less ACO do that the Army cadets don’t?
So why would the loss of the Glider Fleet summon the end of the ACO; there is still flying (okay, tell 5AEF that).
Powered flying and gliding provision complimented each other for years. You might not get a cadet into Chippy/Bulldog/Tutor, but you could balance that with a glider flight. Also from the learning to fly perspective, how many GS were offered let alone gained each year compared to FS? If we were to lose gliding all together, what’s left in terms of learning about practical aviation? A few dozen Flying Scholarships? This would be much less if not for other bodies offering them was lost. Let’s face it the assembled intelligence at Cranwell has not been able to address the problems and come up with short term alternatives, so anything longer term would allude them even more. Never mind I can’t see that deterring them from a few more edicts and policies directed at staff.
If the ACF lost a general ability in terms of shooting / fieldcraft, would the ACF remain a viable organisation? This is without (or even with) gliding what the ATC is like. I know the ACF has it’s own demons, but not on the same level as the ATC.
I was looking at the new fieldcraft rules in the aftermath of last year’s incident and I can see many squadrons losing their instructors while people play catch up, so losing another activity for cadets at a local level and we won’t even look at shooting. The panic that ensued last year in various emails after the prospect of losing shooting indefinitely loomed, said it all.
Not to worry though we can do DofE and First Aid … quite where the word AIR comes into those, unless we are going to have Air Ambulances for all the first aiders to fly around in and use that as volunteering / skill, I am at a loss.
powered flying has long since stopped being ‘a thing’ for cadets in my Sqn - its impact is significantly less than rememberance day. if only half a dozen of your cadets got to do Rememberence Day parade, would anyone still class RD as being a significant part of the AC experience?
less than 10% of my cadets fly each year. the number of cadets who will fly more than once in, say, 4 years of being in the ACO, will be about zero.
Powered flying for us, even before the fiasco around 5 AEF’s move, had seen reductions in allocation, which when postponements for weather / lack of pilots came into the equation I had one flying detail for 6 cadets in the 18 months before they found they couldn’t do it anymore.
So I’ve been in a flyingless ATC for a while and it is a soul destroying experience.
January 4, 2016
“Atlantic Canada’s Air Cadet Gliding Program will be back off the ground in the spring after being paused five months ago while changes were made to aircraft maintenance.”
That just rubs salt into wounds.
Are we still expecting an announcement today?
POP was the mam with his ear to this.
Yes but looking at CACs Twitter feed it appears Cranwell DII has been down all afternoon. Or HQACs anyway. Possibly delayed it being sent?
Or… (Sinister chord music) dum dum dummmm … It was “planned” to go down!
Ropy witness: I did see OC 2 FTS near the server room looking around over his shoulder a lot.
So, the “plan” was seemingly signed off on 18 Dec; today, anything short of a national disaster could have been hidden underneath the morass of coverage of the Litvinenko assassination! Looks like someone chickened out.
The longer it takes, the worse it gets. I’m hoping that this makes the national press.
Maybe I should have a word with my contacts on the express, times and mail 
lol
There’s no “maybe” abiut it - send details soonest. It has the makings of the perfect Press story, disadvantaged youth, waste of Govermment money, allegations of senior management incompetence, castle building, etc, etc.
Publish & be damned! 
And get most of Joe public asking why are we wasting money on the cadet forces anyway? Not sure that’s the best idea, even with friends in very high places doing the best they can to protect the ATC and the FTSs that support it.