Am I correct in thinking that HQAC / MOD are now worried about damaging the hearing of teenagers?
The same ones that seem to have earplugs permanently fixed listening to music and other things as much as you’d let them?
Given from about the age of 12 I used to listen to music through headphones, (even more when I got a Walkman in the early 80s) that was no doubt too loud, went to gigs, pubs and clubs with music that was so loud that on more than one occasion you’d come out and have to shout at each other, as your hearing was somewhat diminished.
My hearing like many others of a similar age was probably shafted 40 years ago. But being around an aircraft and on ranges without ear protection when I was a cadet I might be inline for a few quid.
The sort of thing suggested is like people wearing ear defenders when using noisy kit, yet not 5 yards away people are working with nothing. It’s all H&S twaddle invented by people with too much time on their hands and in desparate need of making it look like they have a worthwhile job.
Some informative details sent very quickly by 2FTS.
HQACO will be asked to ensured that all 2FTS notifications are released in .PDF format.
The notification concerning the major revisions to ACTOs 31 & 32 had distribution to “ALL ACO CFAV” - please ensure you are so notified!
Limitation of one sortie per 7 days, yes this a “hard” limit, no exceptions, based on a comprehensive In flight noise assessment conducted by the Noise & Vibration Division of RAF Centre Av Med. Their findings resulted in the Flying Orders and Guidance (FOG) - Tutor Order 36 being amended as follows:
d. Air Experience and Passengers. All air experience and passengers are limited to a single sortie in any week.
There are ways of mitigating the noise risk / increasing exposure limits, such as fitting the Mk4A4 helmet & the Inner Ear Comms Device (IECD); however, these are not always practical due issues such as Cadet head size (too small!) or availability of IECD at an AEF unit. So, policy as stated as per Flying Orders!
Note - “individual” helmets normally have to be fitted by Medical officers, so that route is probably out of the window. IECD - maybe an option?? However, if that is possible, until they are widely available, I doubt if there will be any revision to the ACTO / Flying Orders.
I suggested that even a brief explanatory note to the ACTO (one sortie per 7 days) would highlight the reason & minimise hassles at the AEF.
When I did my flying scholarship back in the Tutor we wore the white helmet on the first day but were then fitted out with a green “bone dome” for the remainder of the 2 weeks so I would suggest this issue has been known about for a while but has only recently be re-established and codified in the regulations
Especially when they’ve got 5 AEF as well. I’m pretty certain the people there don’t like flying, if seeing the emails that come out on a Thursday or Friday with another excuse not to fly cadets are anything to go by.
I’m wondering how this contrasts with air cadets doing flying scholarships at Tayside on the Grob Heron (a similar type) but just wearing a Dave Clark (or similar) headset. Is the inherent noise attenuation better? Are they using ANR?
Don’t know the type of headsets in use, but if ANR, almost certainly a huge improvement on the “clamp your brains” in versions. There are lots of very good (& relatively cheap) versions on the market.
There is also the noise absorbed by “cranial” aspects rather than directly through the eardrum.
The limit for more regular Tutor flyers is not much higher (and is listed in the same FOG)
IECD seem to be in short supply across the MOD and, just to add insult to injury, are quite fragile. That said, they aren’t the most comfortable piece of a equipment in the world. They are a very similar to modern headphones but with a interchangeable foam tip which screws (and unscrews) on to the main unit and goes into the ear. Sometimes they stay there too (generally a trip to the MO).
T’other way round. Squippers can quite easily do a Mk4 or Mk10 helmet fitting for any other pax flight. However IECDs, as they go against the general rule of “don’t shove anything bigger than your elbow in your ear”, do have to be initially sized and fitted by a MO.
However constant honest communication with us, a speedy response and path to resolution would have meant no one would have spoken an MP or done anything else as we were better informed.
As it is they have faffed and fiddled for very nearly THREE years and wasted public money with no real resolution in sight. There are some who should be subject to an MPs committee for questioning.
The fact the ACMB have made this comment shows just how little they understand or regard us. If we don’t get answer or information, we’re not hamstrung like the people they would have under their command in the RAF, we’re in the real world and most staff at squadrons see their MPs and Councillors at events during the year. I’ve been on first name terms with at least 5 MPs and countless councillors.
To keep calling it a “pause” after more than 2-3 weeks was just plain insulting.
Rubbish. The trouble with idiots is, that always complain or bang the drum regardless of how good the communication is or how honest the glitterati are. Why? Because activists like to despite the truth. Because people like that always feel hard done to or lied to. Because they feel the truth isn’t the truth and it’s their job, nay their calling, to seek the proper truth. Except in the ACO the majority are so scared of being treated unfairly they hide behind pseudonyms (like we do on here perhaps)
In this instance we were told in April 2014 it was “a pause”, to me pause means a short break which would infer a couple of weeks. But we were told the back end of 2014 which soon became 2015 and then 2016 and now 2017 and probably 2018. I don’t know about others but when a official communique came out with a date, in good faith (because we have been told by people who are getting paid to do this) I passed this information on to cadets to assure them that a return, is in sight. Now I say I have no idea and suggest they get their parents to ask HQAC.
The experts must have known quite early on how bad things were and it was more than a paper exercise, at which point we should have been told the situation and that gliding would be off the menu for say 2 or 3 years and the alternative was some form of BGA or similar collaboration. However to admit this and provide an alternative would have killed gliding in the ATC so we were and continue to be strung along. Management of Air Cadet gliding in the form of 2 FTS is providing some people with nice little earners while not having to do very much. Ooooh for a bit of Parliamentary oversight and scrutiny.
I don’t think I saw the article in the DT until it was raised in the house as there was no doubt a feeling of desperation, after an MP acting on the comments of a constituent asked a question in The House at which point it entered the public domain. Frankly the ACMB brought this upon themselves and if it left them uncomfortable so be it. There is a reason they use the word uninformed. You would have thought a question in The House would have chivvied them up a bit.
All they have done is failed several generations of cadets, based on the average length of cadet service.
You can sprinkle a dog poo with glitter, sprinkle it with perfume - but underneath nothing changes.
That is the basic situation with the gliding debacle. It shouldn’t have got to that situation (it did, how, why were cadets flying in airframes that were allegedly declared unsafe?), the “recovery” has been laughable, the communication poor to non-existent, & alternative options were not considered. BGA should have been approached, cap in hand, to ask for short-term assistance - with finances to support the request. If anything, due to ACTO35, it became harder to organise “other” flying. I bet you, that if a manufacturer had been asked 3 yrs ago to supply 50+ new gliders, the first ones would be operational already - after all, we have the shiny new winches…
Oh, let’s get planning permission for a repair hangar - based on “national security” - yeah, that worked out well - not.
Even the latest (non-readable to some) update says a lot, but actually tells you nothing. Timescale for repairs? VGS manning? How long for any significant of number of cadets flying?
I didn’t realise until I looked, but noise induced hearing loss was the leading MOD “employer liability” claim in recent years. Although for many it is too late, they can’t just start ignoring it.
