No harm to those cadets.
Harm to the organisation as a whole, because it can (might be intended to) hide the reduction in actual flying.
It won’t be this: otherwise they’d be sat there in bone domes, anti-G trousers, parachutes, and — if flying over water — a ‘Mae West’.
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But QAIC were wearing flying suits well before the reduction in actual flying.
Why do JL dress like RAF Regt then?
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but are those “Safety hazards” still present in an ISO container?
pricisely.
so the only argument is to be seen as part of a “trade” and have distinction as a “pilot” - given this is the same reason QAIC adopt there use is there any differences?
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Personally, I think we should have RAF Regiment Cadets, just like Royal Maribe Cadets, with RAF Regt stable belts and their own mudguards and rank slides.
it funny you say that, a Cadet asked me a few weeks ago “why don’t we have SAS Cadets?”
to which I replied, perhaps we do, but being SAS you just don’t know we do 
A perfectly valid question, considering we have Parachute Regt and Royal Marine Cadets. I wonder if the ACF and CCF (Army) units affiliated to the battalions that became the Ranger Regt re-capbadged with them?
My rationale was that some may well be & there may be an assessed fire risk for that container (loads of electrics in a big metal box). We’ve seen with AEF the focus on wearing fire retardant uniform so speculating I can see this happening with flying suits for RPAS pilots.
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Can we maybe take this elsewhere cause a) it’s dull and b) it’s not about lost activities.
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So new policy has apparently come out that cadets can no longer cook for themselves on D of E without a supervisor with an NGB qualification.
Which spoils the point of DofE being self sufficient.
Source?
Sqn cdr in next wing, apparently advised by WATTO - they did say there were challenging so hopefully it is a “local” policy not corps policy & it will get over-ruled.
All cadets? Or just those at Bronze/first time cooking? The majority of cadets should be being supervised when cooking I thought? That’s sort of the point of ESM/Camping Leader?
At Bronze, direct supervision would be expected whilst cooking IMO. But at Gold, they should be capable of being alone and cooking.
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From the ACATI:
Used sensibly by properly-trained cadets, lightweight camping stoves are safe. However, particularly with the Trangia-type stoves, but also with the others, lack of concentration, horseplay or lack of appreciation of the potential risks can easily lead to an accident. Therefore, even when trained, cadets are to be supervised appropriately. This may involve close supervision during their initial expeditions but as they gain experience and maturity, it is important that they be given responsibility for their own safety
It’s local policy, if it’s the same Wing that I think it is they also aren’t allowing a non-NGB to deliver IET on Squadron on a parade night.
For me that’s the point of IET, so that they’d not need you to stand looking over their shoulder the whole time.
Also f they feel they can’t cook without their hands being held you take out the initiative to have a hot drink at a break stop etc.
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Direct supervision doesn’t mean hand holding. If I’m supervising a DofE group that I haven’t taught myself, I’m going to want to check, at least for their first bit of cooking, that they know what they’re doing. It’s no different to how I’d probably try and meet them for their first main road crossing to make sure they’re being safe.
If something goes wrong, it’s on the supervisor. It’s all well and good that someone tells me they’ve been trained, but ‘assessing’* that for my self is an important step.
*Not assessing as in DofE assessment, but assessing for competence/safe use.
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That’s not what the ACATI looks like to me - for me, assessment/assurance says ‘an assessor who’s not met them before can watch them while they do X or Y in a training/training+ environment, and decide whether they’re happy with attitude and skills’ - and I could plausibly stretch that to meaning watching them cook half their meals on the Bronze practice weekend.
The ACATI however says expeditions, which a) means the whole thing, and b) means both the practice and the actual Bronze (and possibly into practice Silver?) and for me, that is just completely opposed to the DofE ethos, and I simply don’t see how a DofE assessor could sign off an expedition supervised in that way.
Isn’t that what the “campcraft” courses are designed for and the Initial exped training at 1st class or are we ignoring all of that knowledge base now
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Which very much depends on the training, the group of Cadets and who did it. Once again we have a blanket rule being made up which assumes that staff are morons incapable of delivering activities that we are qualified to deliver.
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The new corps mission statement.
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