Just before the Christmas break, we were asked to bid for AEF slots - end of Jan.
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It must be pretty galling for all the RAF lads on 2 year holds, waiting for a pilot course to start!
Will it take the Ukrainian trainees 7 years to go from start to operationally ready like their RAF equivalents?
This maybe experienced combat pilots doing a conversion course enabling them to come up to speed in operating in western airspace prior to transitioning onto air craft such as F16s.
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I have no problem with the RAF contributing to training the pilots. I have a problem with us missing out, because of our ties to the MOD again putting us at the bottom of the pecking order.
It is another argument to go civilian. The RAF simply cannot resource us appropriately, it has been apparent for years and sticking our fingers in our ears and pretending it doesn’t exist won’t make that any better. Sure, now it’s for Ukrainians. Then it will be for other regulars. Then it will be the next thing. We are not a priority for our parent organisation, that is evident, and whilst this specific occasion is merited I doubt most 13 year olds or their parents give a damn. They can support us supporting the Ukranians and still want to get access to the opportunities we’re supposed to provide, they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
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ACTO35 needs to be revisited then… 
Or, a formal (temporary or permanent) replacement option for use of approved civilian flying organisations needs to be investigated.
It seems that our AEF has heard no more than the information in the MOD article.
Well, if anything, I suppose that shows that poor comms is more than just a cadet problem. RAF evidently need to square their stakeholder engagement away too.
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It may well be that they are not (currently) affected by the Ukrainian trg so wouldn’t necessarily be involved in the comms chain? That said, probably a good idea to update all AEFs / UAS facilities on the basis that it manages expectations - & perhaps a way of implying that if not currently affected, there could be potential in the future.
On a comms security perspective, i also wouldn’t want numbers of trainees / locations to be openly highlighted.
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If nothing else, I’d expect the AEFs to be given a minimal brief that would allow them to answer the inevitable questions they’d receive from RAFAC aviation officers.
They don’t necessarily need all details, but they do need some. And certainly they should be finding out such info via CoC rather than the media.
A dial-in would be a handy thing to have to unmuddy the waters 
This doesn’t sound good
Small update on this - it looks like this will be split between two different UASs, alternating between them so no cadets miss out entirely. If you fly from one of those you will find out soon enough… but most of us won’t be badly affected by this. And it seems a reasonable way we can support an ally without actually putting boots on the ground.
Maybe the training of foreign aircrews wasn’t the “future distraction” the comdt was referring to after all?
Folks.
This is the best thread I could find rather than starting a new one.
We have found more and more often cadets are arriving at AEFs with the wrong version of the Av Med form 1. Today we had cadets arrive with v1 and v2 which have been signed this week. Please note v1 is totally obsolete, v2 is valid for 1 year as long as it was signed and dated prior to Feb 2025. The current version is v3.
Having to get escorting staff to find the correct version and have parents complete it and email back on the day of flying takes too much time out of our flying day. That with the limited resources we have may mean we need to make a decision as to whether we fly cadets that bring the wrong forms. This isn’t something we want to do but it’s a sad fact that staff are not checking the forms, reading IBNs or even maildrops.
Best advice I can give is when downloading the Av Med form, ensure it’s only downloaded from the BADER main resources page and that it is the correct version. DO NOT download from a link on an email, your Wing sharepoint site or use any forms you’ve got stuffed in a drawer.
If you are unsure, speak to your WAvnO or CCF TEST NCO.
Apologies for the rant but we want to fly cadets, not send them home because of incorrect paperwork.
out of interest what are the differences in these versions?
a quick skim read to compare and constrast and it would seem the obvious difference between Ver1 and 3 is Ver 1 does not ask if the Cadet has Cerebral Palsy.
what information are you expecting on Ver3 that is not found on Ver1 that makes it so invalid?
i am not defending using out of date/past versions of forms - but i wonder is it worth all the effort of a new form completed on the day when the information appears to be 99% identical on both the one presented and the one expected?
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I had an exchange with our Wg Av O about this:
According to Bader Key Documents, the Av Med Form 1 was modified 28 Jan 2025 for one item - severe allergies:
Our Wg advocates using the “local page” to download:
“We ask all Squadrons to download a new set of documents for every aviation event from the XXX Wg Aviation page.”
In a perfect world, yes. In a typical sqn world, no, especially for last minute opportunities (or an “unable to attend” at the last minute from a cadet). A lot of sqns (I do) work on the option of getting as many cadets to hand in a copy of the Av Med 1 form so that it is quickly available. This also can highlight any cadets that might need F6424 action - which can take several weeks for a cadet to get signed off by their GP.
For example, a couple of months ago, despite selecting 2 cadets on Cadet Portal for a short-notice weekday AEF opportunity (& emailing their personal email accounts), guess what, the evening before at the Sqn - oh, didn’t know about the flying! As I had pre-completed Av Med forms available from other cadets, I could go through a rapid re-plan & reprint the required admin.
Separate to Av Med Form 1, there doesn’t seem to be consistency for specifying in the JIs that the “Contacts” report should be part of the admin pack-up. It is for our 2 primary AEF locations, but the 2 VGS locations that we use don’t specify this (I’ve suggested that their JIs are amended) - this makes sense in case there is a medical (or other issue) with the escorting officer (EO), or 'phone access to SMS isn’t possible. The EO might be flying when a problem occurs with one of the cadets - I’ve been both AEF & gliding (twice) over the last couple of yrs.
I suspect this is because AEFs don’t have access to Bader / SMS but VGSs do.
In that case, maybe it would nice to have a “digital” Av Med Form 1 that could be uploaded / pre-screened by the VGS?
Also, from those VGS I have attended, with all the VGS staff out on the airfield, I still suspect that in the event of an incident with EO or cadet, they would have to move a member of staff back to the main VGS building to access Bader / SMS; a hard copy of the Contact report might still be useful.
It’s 2025 and we have a sustainability agenda. Neither of these are compatible with ‘hard copy’ anything.
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You say that but we still have to do a printout of the cadets flying permissions to take with us now they don’t have a 3822.
Aren’t they on MyRAFAC? If so, that sounds like unnecessary (and not very sustainable) duplication.