There is the App…
That’s the bit that doesn’t work. For me anyhow.
Which has a terrible UI
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Popular Flying Association Rallies - where cadets could get seriously close to aircraft by marshalling on the taxiways.
A far cry from litter picking at RIAT !!
Was that an officially sanctioned activity, then? In uniform?
Shame to lose it, but cadets are free to volunteer to help out of uniform in a private capacity. Just an idea.
Yes it was officially approved.
Sqn Ldr WSO often attended.
They used to be huge events, but the PFA decided to downsize them.
We used to get well over 100 cadets attending.
Using 12x12’s
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Using 12x24s…
During my time spent as an Air Cadet in the early 1980s, we used to look forward to the annual visit by the RAF staff of the Chatham CIO. We’d be shown a couple of 1970s vintage films about aspects of the RAF, be told what vacancies and opportunities were available to us within our parent service, be given leaflets which explained what the featured trades involved, and what educational qualifications were needed to join, followed by the Q&A session and canteen break. Afterwards the CIO team would go to the pub across the road with the adult staff.
The last time an RAF recruiting team came around our Sqn was several years ago, and that was the only one I remember in the 11 years I’ve been a CFAV. All they did was run a half-hearted game of ‘Operation X’ with the cadets, most of whom had already done that on annual camps anyway.
There was no trip to the pub afterwards.
I get that everything to do with recruitment is done online these days, and there are good online sources of information which tell one what the RAF is doing right now on training and operations, but these aids should supplement the recruiting process rather than replace large parts of it.
I believe that the main advantage of the old-skool ‘dealing with a real RAF person’ approach is that the cadets and through them, their parents, find out that one can leave school and start a good career with qualifications one earns at 16 years old: if one has four O Levels/Standard Grades in Maths, English Language, a science subject and one other, one can pretty much apply for any trade in the RAF, and not have to waste time and money in further education. In the RAFAC, we are here to offer the ‘Third Way’ between getting a job for which a degree is either needed or perceived to be, and low-skilled jobs which unqualified meat puppets have to do, because such work is beneath the skill level of any self-respecting robot. 
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The favourite film of the 80s was 12 Squadron.
And for the bits they didn’t show.
Then they went onto Tornado, this was with 9 Squadron.
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What’s the value in this? Besides, this kind of thing is a wider cultural shift not specific to the RAF or RAFAC.
Op X isn’t all they do either on visits or on camp. The frequency they visit is as much about units inviting them as it is anything else. The actual careers talk element is still there.
Broadly speaking, this isn’t lost to the degree you suggest, just different.
It’s more the case that the RAF is many times smaller than the RAFAC, has more than enough applicants for many roles (indeed, most are closed for months on end waiting for vacancies - some are due to clogged pipelines, but many aren’t), and has fitness and medical standards that most of the population - and a lot of cadets - no longer meet.
They don’t need to come to us for direct recruitment. So they don’t. It’s a waste of time for everyone.
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‘Going to the pub afterwards’ isn’t my thing anymore, either, but it was the ‘thing’ back in the 20th century in both service & civilian life. I believe human creatures used to enjoy having a few beers together and talking rubbish in the pre-internet chat forum era.
I briefly served as a CI on my old squadron in the late ‘80s in between serving in the Army, coming out and re-enlisting in the RAF, and the pub across the road was pretty much the ‘All Ranks Mess’ for the adult staff and visitors. The squadron isn’t a place where one has the time or inclination to talk about matters in an informal way in my experience.
Good to see the RAF CIO visits are still going in the RAFAC according to you, tho’: where my squadron is based is way too far away for an evening visit, and the CIO in the nearest big city closed down years ago, anyway. 
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Sadly, those were my thoughts as well, so what’s the point of the RAFAC’s continued existence? 
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See how many of these, the core aims of the ATC, involve actively joining the RAF;
“To promote and encourage among young men and women a practical interest in aviation and the Royal Air Force (RAF).
To provide training which will be useful in both the Armed Forces and civilian life.
To foster a spirit of adventure and to develop the qualities of leadership and good citizenship”
And that’s your answer.
We, the RAFAC, have never been a recruitment organisation. And we shouldn’t ever be, either. Far too many walts as it is.
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Not the case. The RAF (and Army, and Navy) falls drastically short of its recruitment targets every year, hence the misguided push for female and BAME applicants.
Roles are temporarily closed for new applicants when there is a blockage in the training pipeline.
Pilot is the classic example. Desperately short of operationally ready pilots, yet closed to new applicants because their are already hundreds on hold waiting for courses.
My question is, regarding the RAFAC’s continued existence: What is the RAF’s reason for being the parent service of an organisation which is much bigger than them, which provides them with relatively few recruits, due to its self-professed denial of being a recruitment organisation, and which they don’t really need as one anyway?
It’s all very charitable, the RAF spending part of its share of the defence budget keeping us going (we wouldn’t last long on cadet subscriptions and our own charitable money raising alone, let alone provide service-based activities), but their main role is to kill or threaten to kill the bad guys in the world, and it was to that end the ADCC and early ATC were formed, and the latter being kept going during the first Cold War.
If we were the RAF’s recruitment organisation, we’d be a lot more selective in our own recruitment of staff and cadets: the former would have to be either ex-military or well qualified civilians, and the latter would end up doing a younger person’s version of the RAF entrance tests. I wouldn’t want that, either, but if it is true that the our Armed Forces are short of recruits, then we do need to raise awareness in our young people and their parents of the roles, benefits and responsibilities involved in choosing that career. There is actually a war on again, and we need young people to defend our country against the enemy, or deal with whatever other challenges the rest of the 21st century is going to throw at us.
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The gov has repeatedly stated that the cadet forces are worth the money, so doesn’t matter what the RAF thinks, frankly.
Why so keen for it all to be disbanded? You know if you’re not enjoying it you can leave, right? You don’t have to wait for it to stop existing to have some time off…
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That’s the case for some, but by no means all.
Agreed. Arguably the pilot/RPAS stream is the premier profession in the RAF, it’s going to be oversubscribed.
Other professions, like mine, are massively reduced in terms of capacity.