My CO has asked one of the other CI’s to teach drill at the squadron. I said uniform staff only should take or teach drill, not CI’s, he said show me where this is in the regulations. I could not find it, can any one help.
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Somewhere at the beginning on the AP, I think it says drill must be taught by qualified drill instructors.
And if you don’t have one?
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Careful, you sound like you’re about to suggest a common sense, sensible, pragmatic solution…!
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I had a similar issue on a squadron I was on one time. The Warrant Officer, before we had Sgts and Flt Sgts, insisted it was his job to teach drill. He was the only adult NCO on the unit. The problem was he was rubbish at it, made a lot of it up and had basically no idea. His vast experience of being a bus driver was no help and his dress and deportment was unacceptable. (I’d inherited him from the previous OC)
There was a CI, ex-cadet, ex- military and as smart as a new pin, who was better in every way for the role. I overruled the Warrant Officer and either the CI, the senior cadets or a very capable junior officer taught drill, correctly and to a higher standard. I offered the WO the opportunity to get extra training and suggested he improve his standard of turn out. He did neither. He kicked up quite a fuss and tried to move to another unit. Nobody would have him. After several months he disappeared.
In such an organisation as this, it needs the best person for the job regardless of rank or position, to give the cadets the best experience possible. This should apply across the board. I’m not sure it does though.
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What it says is:
“The instruction of drill movements is clearly defined and must be taught by qualified drill
instructors who have attended either the RAF Drill Instructor’s course or the All Arms Drill
course at the Guards’ Depot.”
The problem with that statement is that we as CFAV do no attend either course. So if we were to accept that as a rule for the RAFAC, it would effectively end drill for 99.9 % of squadrons.
I would suggest that @XRSO’s answer is the most applicable to us:
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Does the AP strictly apply to the RAFAC? Is there an ACP that says the same?
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AP 818 is the RAF drill manual. RAFAC drill used to be covered in ACP 20, but was removed when the AP was adopted.
Previously, air cadets who subsequently joined the Service had to re-learn drill and be trained out of certain cadetisms they had picked up from the differences in ACP 20. This would then happen again on promotion, as some of the differences were in the wording of orders and so didn’t become apparent until commanding a squad.
So AP818 is the drill bible then. However as previously stated, the instruction on who can teach drill cannot and should not apply to the RAFAC. Is there any official directive that outlines this? I can’t imagine the chapters on funeral drill and similar specific activities would be appropriate for cadets to do.
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Yeah, that’s nonsense. It’s what happens when we just adopt a service document not designed for use by another organisation. Even our own DIs likely don’t fall under those restrictions.
Ignore.
If a CI can teach the subject, let them teach the subject.
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Personally I think it comes down to if there is a uniformed CFAV that is competent in drill to teach it, this would normally be the person filling the Squadron WO/SNCO post. If there isn’t and the CI is competent then nothing stopping them.
I taught drill as a CI prior to going into uniform then on the other side of the coin I have had CIs try to correct my cadets drill on nights im not down and they have advised wrong and then was taken a back when I asked them to not intervene in the cadets drill and inform me if they think there are any issues… they are yet to bring anything to my attention but have at least taken a step back.
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I remember ACP 19, but not having it in 20A or 20B…
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Maybe it was ACP 19. I was a cadet at the time and only ever heard verbal references to it.
Edit: there’s a whole thread on here about the changes that moving to AP 818 resulted in.
As I can’t see the difference between army & RAF drill why do t we just use the Army manual & the. The majority are using the same book.
There’s a single Army drill manual? Someone needs to tell The Rifles, RGR, Brigade of Guards, etc.
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yeah, each regiment has their own drill and uniform regs
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So could we have a JSP of “drill manual for MoD cadet Forces” make it full purple?
That would be full of cadetisms, taking us back to the bad old days of ACP 19(?) drill: when being an ex-cadet introduced barriers to transition into the regulars (because unlearning cadetisms is harder than learning drill from scratch).
Linky, please!
Still trying to work out why a spotted a bunch of people marching 4 paces after falling out a few months back.
We never marched after doing a 45 degree turn “back in the day”…
Back in the day use to a 90 degree turn as an air cadet….
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