Hi, I am going on an annual camp to MOD St Athan and I was wondering what activities we might get to do as cadets. Thank you for reading, any info would be greatđź‘Ť
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Take the day off, get the train to Llanelli and do a barefoot pilgrimage to the holiest of holy sites - the old Stradey Park, and get down on you knees and beg the Lord God’s forgiveness for the sacrilege of knocking down this cradle of civilization.
If you go with decent staff they’ll recognise that this is a religious duty and sort you out with time and some cash - if you go with a bunch of ungodly heathens who look at you blank looks and incomprehension, then you don’t have to listen to what they say.
HTH.
It is 10 years since I was on St Athan camp but my experiences, specific to Athan include
(in no particular order)
Evening cliff top/beach walk
Day visit to Cardiff, including guided tour of the (then called) Millennium Stadium
Day trip to “big pit”
Section visit to the “breakers yard” – I forget the name of the unit. A hanger on the far side of the airfield who took bent, broken, damaged airframes and took them apart to collate (rob for) spares. I seem to remember they were running the operation down (possibly moving location?) so there wasn’t a great deal on show but still interesting to see a few aircraft in bits!
Visit to Pembrey sands, bombing range, watched Hawks approach, circle and drop their payload on the range
The rest was fairly standard – drill, sports (inc swimming) Sunday service at the Station church, fire station visit (water fight), fam-ex, shooting. I remember the all ranks mess bar was a nice place for the evenings. Pool tables and table tennis in the “games room” with a good size bar for the Staff to have a corner while Cadets had adequate space too.
The last time I went there were trips to Big Pit (reasonably interesting if you’re interested in industrial history) and Barry Island, which made the likes of Great Yarmouth, Weston Super Mare, Skegness and Margate look glamourous.
When I went there as a cadet we trapsed up Pen Y Fan (in the rain) from the Storey Arms, probably a no no now as you’d need loads of staff all suitably qualified, given it’s over 600m high.
St Athan’s fairly quiet now (it’s my wing’s parent station). Having said that the UAS/AEF are still there (although the VGS is now an AGS), there’s now a historic aircraft company which allow cadets to visit and poke about classic aircraft, there are a couple of civilian companies there that refurbish or scrap aircraft so that could be interesting, there is also a brand new Aston Martin factory. No 4 School of Technical Training are still there for the time being, I don’t know if they do section visits. In addition to all of the generic RAF station stuff, ranges, fire section etc.
I imagine you’ll definitely go to the beach, possibly into Cardiff, and dependent on staff maybe into the Brecon Beacons.
we had a this as our section visit…!
Thanks for the info, sounds like it should be a good camp​:blush: