It’s been 1 year and I haven’t gone flying yet. What should I say to the staff? Is there anything I need to do or say or will they automatically make me go eventually?
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Honestly I think it’s just becoming normal at this point 
I’ve been in 1.5yrs am a cpl and still not gone flying despite being told I’ll be going multiple times. No there’s really nothing you can do to “automatically” make you go just put effort into what you do and show dedication to cadet activities is what our sqn look for.
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Sadly, you are correct. The number of places per year vs the number of cadets is not a happy ratio. It’s something that us staff get annoyed about as much as you cadets do. I don’t think there’s anyone who’s happy about it.
As for the OPs question of what can they say to their staff, that’s hard to answer. Each squadron allocates flying slots differently. Albeit most do priorities those who haven’t flown before. We also look at those who are doing lots of other things. If someone goes to loads of events, always turns up etc then they will get priority over someone who regularly drops out of events last second.
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The allocation of powered flights in the air cadets used to be one per cadet per year. Before the Grob Tutor the ATC had its own AEFs flying our own trainer aircraft: the De Havilland Canada Chipmunk T10. The latter aircraft type was no longer in use for RAF flying training (apart from BBMF conversion training) because of its obsolete tandem cockpit layout and tailwheel undercarriage, but it was a good aircraft for our aeronautical training. Indeed, it would have been the first aircraft many young people had flown in.
Now the RAFAC has to share the Tutor with everyone else in the UK Armed Forces who requires initial flying training - University Air Squadrons, the other Regular Forces, maybe even pilots from foreign forces such as Ukraine.
Also, the RAF is now a third of the size of pre-1990s days, so those two facts put together - consolidation of flying training and much reduced size, would logically mean that flying training slots are hard to get for the RAFAC.
That’s my take on it, being an ex-cadet from the 1980s and having served 23 years in the army and RAF, during which time those two forces were cut back in several defence reviews. If any other CFAV out there has the official answer to this question, I’d be just as interested in hearing it.
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off topic but curious therefore why the Grob 109B was selected given this too has a tailwheel
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None of that was remotely relevant to the question that was asked. 
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Sadly most cadets will be lucky to get one flight in a cadet career from age 12-18 (though I accept due to the postcode lottery some get far more than that), so a year without flying isn’t unreasonable.
That’s a powered glider, though. It might not have enough forward weight with its smaller engine for a tricycle undercarriage to work. The RAFAC might have wanted to stick with one manufacturer for the usual reasons: cost, spares, servicing etc.
Once again, official answers are welcome.
It is relevant: if the RAFAC has control of its own aircraft for AEF, no-one else wants to use them, and we get all the flying slots. That’s not the case now: we have to share the training aircraft.
Like I said, official answers are welcome for clarification. We’ve had none so far.
If you are going to provide a history lesson instead of answering the question, you missed out the Bulldog 
. Although a seperate thread on the history of AEF would be an interesting discussion.
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So on your world if RAFAC has sole use of its own aircraft, who pays for it? I think the original question was probing how long to wait? Contributing factors to current wait is lack of aircrew, serviceable aircraft and other operational reasons. Sharing of the fleet has little impact if all previous are resolved, and of course there are more cadets than there were in the 80s.
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Back on topic.
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@Hypopendra24 - very few others will think to do this, so let me do it on their behalf. I’d like to apologise for the fact that you haven’t been able to fly within your first year as a cadet.
It was once the norm, certainly in the area of the country that I’m from, that every cadet would get at least 1x 20 minute powered flight per year. Sadly, the RAF has wound down many of the cadet flying operations as a consequence of various excuses, whilst still incorrectly perpetuating the idea that cadets fly on a regular basis.
This leads to sorry situations such as yours, where you have an expectation that the air cadets would spend time in the air. In my personal opinion, it’s something senior personnel within the RAF and RAFAC should be issuing apologies for.
However, in terms of your original question; there’s nothing you can say to your staff. I promise you that they are just as frustrated as you are and ultimately don’t have control of how many places their squadron are given in a year. There will likely be other people, either in your squadron or a nearby one, who have been a cadet for even longer without having been given the opportunity to experience powered flight. As I’m sure you would understand, they would currently have a higher priority to fly than yourself.
All you can do is have patience, carry on working hard at the squadron and off-squadron events, and ensure you’re showing up to everything you can. Failing a major catastrophe you will eventually, but with the underinvestment in cadet flying recently no-one can tell you when that will actually be.
In the meantime, we all hope that the senior bods will remove their manual digits from their non-facial orifices and get this sorted for all of our cadets.
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The Bulldog was used by the for only three years until the Tutor replaced it, so I didn’t mention it for brevity: a complete history would also mention the squadron of Airspeed Oxfords used during WWII by the ATC.
I was looking back to compare with today: I was given seven flying spots in three years and three months service as a cadet - one Chinook and six AEFs (two were cancelled at the AEF due to adverse weather). That’s one slot every six months, and nothing unusual to be given a regularly attending cadet in those days, including AEFs at annual and Easter camps.
If the ATC was doing something better then to get cadets flying regularly then, than we are now, we could learn from history.
Or, the lack of flying opportunities these days might be down to events beyond the control of any of us within the RAFAC, from the Commandant down: the RAF is smaller; the Air Cadets is bigger; we are in a Cold War with China and a real one with Russia, so we must train pilots for the Regular Armed Forces and our allies; and the aforementioned resources available to us - servicing, pilots and ground crew etc.
If we knew the official reason for it, then we’d all accept it, and have an answer we could pass on to the cadets, rather than speculation, apologising for something beyond our control or deferring the question.
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Think we need a different thread
We’re all on the same side on this topic - you, me, the Wing staff, the Commandant Air Cadets - because flying in service training aircraft is our most important core activity. No-one would want to see it disappear.
I think the answer might be: “Circumstances beyond our control.” Unless we all know the exact number of AEF slots allocated to the RAFAC per year, after the Regular Forces and UAS have had their share, and how they are divided between Regions. 
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circa 12000 hrs are allocated to us, the RAFAC, per year by 6FTS.
Part of the ACPS restructure was to look at whether these hours would be increased to allow for ACPS, or whether ACPS would mean less AEFs. It was in an FOI and I hadn’t time to process the whole thing.
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So we have 36 000 twenty minutes AEF slots available, ring-fenced for the RAFAC alone, which is enough for all cadets to get a flight a year. Therefore if that time isn’t being filled by constant flying of the Tutors, then the difference between the aspiration and the outcome is being caused by the friction of aircraft servicing, availability of parts, air- and ground crew, adverse weather and so on.
The next figure we need is the amount of flights taken by cadets each year, which will be less than 36 000 because of the friction.
After that, it’s a matter of reducing the difference between the outcome and the aspiration by working on the factors within our control.
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That 12k hours is our total, so also includes any check flights and pilot competency flights etc. I think.
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At least my speculation based upon the “Don’t you know there’s a War On?” and “Has the RAFAC outgrown the RAF?” factors has been knocked out of the equation, so thanks for that. 
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