Looking forward to taking both my cadets flying next year then 
I totally agree, having been part of the generation that got a flight in both every year and lucky enough to have had several flights each year in chipmunk and Viking during my time as a cadet itâs been a bit of a shock to see one child coming to the end of an 8 year cadet career having had one powered flight. Okay covid screwed the last 18 months but still in 6 years a single flight is a bit poor
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Itâs also hardly progress. Going back to an aim we had 15 years ago or more just shows how terrible our capacity for provision has become.
If electric aircraft fix this then brilliant but Iâm not sure the promise of this happening in 5 years is going to do much to sustain numbers or appetites now.
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Not when you can fly 1000 cadets for 10 minutes each in one day with a Chinook.
I donât see them letting cadets anywhere near the controls of a Chinook 
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Who said anything about them getting near the controls?
Getting them airborne en masse is giving them a powered flight, satisfies the CACâs wants, and saves the RAF having to buy fleets of aircraft.
Itâs been done before a few times and is basically the only way you can possibly satisfy the ask to get every cadet flying every year.
To be honest that would still be an improvement on the current offer. It gets cadets off the ground
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Better than nothingâŚbut only just.
We had cadets spend 10 hours on a coach for 10 minutes in a Chinook. They wouldnât do it again.
i think it is worse that that though.
2027 is 6 years awayâŚthat is 6 years until the RAF have an aircraft in service. that will be slow roll out (look at the F-35 which is a higher priority versus basic training) and then once the fleet is âestablishedâ can then consider increasing capacity for the ATC Cadet.
if the RAFAC see opportunities before 2030 i will be pleasantly surprised, but realistically canât see any âimprovementâ until 2030 at the very earliestâŚ
Weâve had a couple of hours drive to a station for 10 mins in a chinookâŚ
But there was a small tour before hand, a few interesting talks from the ground crew on the items they looked after on the aircraft, the chance to look at one with its bonnet up having some work done⌠then the 10 minute flight.
All in all a really interesting day, most of which was spent on the ground, but we had a great time.
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A number of years ago LaSER organised a big thing at Odiham which was pretty awesome. A few hundred cadets all got flights in chinock and/or puma and they had a few other aircraft out as static displays that all the cadets could look around.
There were a few other bits going on too, but all in all it made an awesome day out!
Classic âjam tommorowâ argumentâŚ
Can only hope the provision increases.
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Probably due to this thread Google added this to my news timeline.
It was arranged by the Station Commander for all of the units that flew AEF out of Odiham, I sent Cadets from C&E.
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Oh interesting to know! It was certainly a good day and there were a lot of coaches full of happy cadets 
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We need something now, we need something real (not a pimped video game) that can be spoken about to the cadets we have now (those that have remined loyal over the last 16 months) that will be happening soon, not say to them next year or however many years down the line something will happen. Incentive for cadets to stay especially as schooling is going to become their focus ⌠less than zero.
I very much doubt that current cadets give a monkeyâs about RAF nett zero blah blah years down the line, as they wonât be cadets at that point. As an adult itâs smoke and mirrors and expensive, Iâm not convinced the RAF can afford it. The cadets we have now matter more than ever, they are the foundations of an organisation coming out of this period, forget this and the organisation will at best shrink. The future is, more than before, in the hands of the RAF and ACMB, they need to step up as they cannot afford to mess up the next 12 months.
I donât know about jam tomorrow more like the year after next if we can get the sugar and fruit.
I just wonder what they told the new CAC, surely he didnât come into this thinking the Air Cadets is in a good place? We effectively lost the flying USP a long time ago or was this missed in the post interview or hand over chat or at any of the subsequent meetings.
I wonder how easily pleased HQAC would like people to be? We need a return to the regular, sustainable flying of yesteryear, not a few crumbs chucked out once in a while.
More on the electric boogaloo
Looks like the RAF are not going to be the first
For those in the know, is there any weight disadvantage in terms of batteries and motors compared to a conventional aircraft?
How does a full charge compare to a full tank?
Is there anything to run electrical items or is it like EVs where using electrical items affects how far you can drive?
Is there a premium on the purchase price like there is with EVs and their normal equivalents?
Massive weight penalty which is pretty much the one and only reason they arenât in use already. Energy density of jet fuel is (about) 100x more than lithium ion. 1kg of fuel has the energy of 100kg of lithium ion, ish.
Take a 777 and stick 100 tonnes of jet fuel to fly from London to Hong Kong and youâd need 10,000 tonnes of batteries⌠And the batteries donât get lighter (well they technically do but not even remotely noticeable!)
Now, little planes like these that are being talked about, much less of an issue. Whilst a turbofan on a modern jet may be 70-80% efficient (how much energy goes in and actually produces useful work) a Cessna type plane with a rackety piston engine may only be 15-20% efficient. A battery powered car/plane is about 80% efficient, so about on par to our 777 running on jet fuel. Turbofans can be up to 5x as efficient as pistons as the heat is actually used for propulsion and not wasted.
This means for our small plane the energy density in terms of what we actually get out is only 20:1. A Cessna could, if needed, be built to have 10 hours of fuel with many tanks. That means a small plane of the same weight could easily get 30 mins of flight time. Make some efficiency savings, only have a couple of seats and prioritise the battery along with modern aerodynamics and you can see how you could get to an hour of flight time in a small plane. You have the benefit of not being constrained by the old designs needing to accommodate an engine of a certain shape.
Timeline looks reasonable for what theyâre after. Not a chance for airline type operations though, at least not with todayâs technology.
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