Just before the Christmas break, we were asked to bid for AEF slots - end of Jan.
1 Like
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.
1 Like
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.
6 Likes
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.
1 Like
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.
1 Like
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?