There’s no appetite to pressurise VGS to fly as many cadets as possible. The emphasis is on safety. I would be extremely surprised if the VGS system were to be more productive in terms of quantity than it used to be?
I also doubt they’ll double the number of launches/ hours per airframe per day? This is what would be required to achieve anything like the output pre pause?
then i guess CAC has her numbers wrong!
Of course when you drop below 50% of your previous capacity quantity will suffer, but nowhere in the recruitment literature is this mentioned.
Maybe it should say “expect to get a session in gliders once in two years and similarly powered aircraft, but in the meantime you can do this and this and this, if you have access to staff qualified to do it.”
Less than £96 will get you a 30 minute flight, in our neck of the woods.
It is sad that because some people took their eye off the ball, so that we are now where we are now, with squadrons (and it is squadrons) making things up to keep cadets interested, with zero assistance in terms of finance and equipment from HQAC. We have spent several thousand over the last couple of years buying a flight sim get up and subsidising cadets to do other things, both of these I know will be ongoing costs, especially the sim as the things break/go wrong and hardware / software age. The OC has been suggesting we should try and help the CWC more, as they can’t get grants for ‘running costs’. I know this from my time as OC and you can’t always go for money for the same things all the time.
This organisation is becoming a shadow of what it was and no one at the top seems to have the gumption to do anything about it.
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As people are discussing subs around £100 (Great value for all the activities but not the quantity and quality of flying). Worth noting that at some BGA clubs that can buy you quite a bit of flying.
For example at my home club membership is around £25. Each flight is about £6 off the winch. That’s around 12 flights, the ATC will be able to provide a launch or two and a sim trip at best if all the cards are lined up for once.
It’s no wonder cadets do leave early (As I did in 2014), there are so many better value for money opportunities for flying elsewhere and loads of civilian scholarships available. Hopefully Squadrons push the latter opportunity.
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This is based on an assumption that flying is the only activity or opportunity that matters - thankfully it isn’t.
I hope I have missed the sarcasm in the above!
More for less has been the mantra in my job since 2010! It is only now that this mantra is being shown as flawed as the logic behind it.
Fewer aircraft cannot operate more hours. They will get to the end of their mechanical life quicker and break down more!!!
Only thing you get with less is less
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Assumption you may think, but it’s factually true to say people do leave for a variety of reasons, including the lack of aviation/flying opportunities provided. I am by no means suggesting it being the only or primary reason. But the aviation side is one of the big USPs that the ATC sells to prospective cadets.
If it’s not the only opportunity that matters, why do we continue to have a website that implies by the pictures on the front page that flying is central to what the Air Cadets do and therefore the only thing that matters?
From the FAQs
How often do you get to go flying? You can go at least once a year …
Because we have an organisation run by people who used to wear blue for a living and who therefore see it as the be all and end all of their lives.
Perhaps those images are there because we are the RAF Air Cadets…?
Aviation is our core. I get the idea that there’s less Flying and gliding at the moment. Some of the reasons for that are beyond our control. You can’t do what you used to do with less! Our cadets still do that and with the gliding recovery it will improve.
Would the ACF or SCC put glossy images of cadets in flying kit as their main focus on their web pages?
We need to be realistic and do the best with what we’ve got.
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If it were a “commercial organisation,” & if such pictures portrayed an inaccurate expectation of the goods activities on sale = Trading Standards / ASA would be onto things pretty sharpish!
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If you want to draw potential cadets in through the door, you’re going to use images that will appeal? The fact is that some air cadets benefit greatly from the Flying and gliding they experience through the organisation. Accepted, it’s the minority and some cadets aren’t interested, but you’d have to question why the RAF Air Cadets wouldn’t have images of cadets enjoying Flying on its web pages? Wouldn’t you?
Are you suggesting that commercial companies out there don’t use images to their best advantage…?
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I fly commercially, for a living. I’m also an instructor and senior examiner being empowered to examine candidates for the initial award of a CPL and Instrument Rating. 2 FTS would have it that someone like me brings additional risk. Hmmm, let me ponder that…
In civilian terms, 2FTS don’t have the competence to make that statement. I’m an expert on oranges, they are experts on apples. The sensible thing to do would be to identify the similarities between apples and oranges.
Funny old world.
What have you volunteered to do for 2FTS and what are the risks they’re quoting?
As for a significant period, the flying - gliding to be precise - was zero. False advertising.
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We all know about the gliding pause. Personally I don’t see anything misleading wrt Flying and gliding on the website? It suggests cadets get airborne ‘as often as possible’…
What exactly is misleading about the images…?
The website promotes the other activities as well…?
Have to agree, if our website looks misleading then what does the RAF website look like … according to that we have loads of serviceable aircraft and loads of airmen at a moments readiness with smiling faces implying morale is high and its a great job to apply for … we all know that its not quite as clean cut and as exciting as the website portrays. To be honest this is what websites are supposed to look like … good grief if you looked at our squadron website you would think we were full time air cadets with what we do and how many activities we do, the reality is we spark the imagination, when the cadets go flying in anything the spark is lit. It really doesn’t matter what they fly in, Tutor, Glider, Herc, A400, C17, Voyager, Puma, Chinook it’s all flying, they have flown. North Region had an Air day, chinooks flew a huge number of cadets, TVW did the same at Benson, HIOW did the same at Odiham … wings are doing stuff, if your wing is not engaging then I have to say that is an issue you need to look within your wing, the RAF are engaging as much as they can, but they need to be asked … ask them.
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My understanding is the wings mentioned had to approach the RAF and not the other way round, which would have been much, much better in terms of the relationship we are supposed to have.
That’s why I said ask them … they are not going to do anything above and beyond their day to day work unless someone asks the ACLO or Stn Cdr. But it needs to come from the WexO … well thats the case at BZN anyway … they don’t want multiple sqns asking they want a consolidated request.