My.point wasnt really being overly serious…
More along the lines of no matter how much effort we put in etc we cant really generate that much of an impressive force…
Could we for example realistically get 20 chinooks together at 12 hour notice (1 tide) to support the post storm.surge evacuation of the East coast?
Same for the army and navy…
What can they realistically muster up…
and you expect an answer?
No. We couldn’t.
For 12hr notice to move, we are contracted for a minimum of two.
Our squadron only has 6-8 airframes in the UK at any given time.
Unsure about the other side. But they have one 12hr national standby as far as I’m aware.
In terms of availability, a specific answer isn’t necessary, just look at the other platforms for an indication - of the 22 A400M, half haven’t flown in 2/3/4 months.
6 Daring class destroyers, having 3 at sea at the same time is considered to be equivalent to the Spithead review of 1912.
Getting 20+ AS90 to Ukraine has required the cannibalisation of the entire fleet of 90+. All gone…
Of a fleet of 200 Challenger 2, getting a single regiment equipped with 50 war-ready tanks is a challenge.
I think the answer for this - and it sounds a lot like many other ACO activities - is diversity.
The One Big Thing approach very obviously doesn’t work, so it would be infinitely better to do Lots of Little Things: for me that’s getting small numbers of cadets onto every base/exercise/activity as often as possible - that, imv, should the job of regions/HQAC, sticking their nose into everything on Defences’s outlook calendar for next month and ringing everyone on it to see if they could squeeze a little gang of cadets into it to watch.
Thanks to all of those that worked hard to make it work.
What is being missed here by the CoC is in the RAF, when seniors say jump it happens. They have the finance and resources to pull off.
In RAFAC, the seniors attempt to pull off as they don’t want to be not doing what CAC wants. Totally forgetting the timescale, resources and finance.
How many time do Region forget the ‘V’ in CFAV and that we all volunteer to do what we do.
This could easily be sorted by a team of CFAVs, we have the knowledge and experience but HQAC don’t want to tap into, but it can’t be done in a couple of months.
Give a team 12 months to sort, with the buy-in from the RAF, and it would be brilliant.
CAC gives date of 15 June 2024 and location of say RAF Leeming. RC North sets up team immediately to pull together. Hard deadlines that will be met. By Christmas 2023 initial paperwork out to Wings and squadrons. Wrapped up by Easter 2024, two months before event to fine tune. People know what they are doing, as with cadets. Simples. And I have organised big events in the past.
The CoC just have to have confidence in their CFAVs, which they don’t at present.
Is this a firm date or a hypothetical muse.
I think the latter. There is 0 chance anyone is thinking a year ahead to set the date for next year!
This is why they’re called ‘lessons identified’ now: out of recognition that we can recognise lessons to be learnt from, but never actually seem to learn them.
Full 360 reporting from an event like this would be ideal.
Currently a lessons learnt would probably be done by getting the senior team that ran the event together for a debrief and look at how they can improve.
What needs to happen is a form sent out to all who attended or helped and get feed back from every level. Some basic quantitative questions and some more open qualitative questions. And send it to everyone that attended or helped. Everyone from the cadets, the coach escorting staff, the CFAV running the stalls, the CFAV managing the event, the RAF PoCs.
You’ll then get some nice quantitative data you can look at, graph, what ever, to understand how the day went. Simple questions like “On a scale of 1-10 how much did you enjoy the day”. Etc Etc.
Then the more open qualitative data might give you some nice ideas for the future. Don’t make the qualitative/open bit mandatory though. Or you’ll get 2500 naff responces.
Only then can you properly look at lessons learnt.
hypothetical Date and location, but about time the north got something
I am in North region, the problem is always how far North to go. Leeming is to East for alot of the North region and Scotland and N&I, Lossiemouth is too far North for most to be doable in a day.
If you are looking at “National” musters radicial thinking i know but what about 3 locations. Boulmer, Cosford, Benson it could even replace the old fashioned Regional competition/training day
Or, what if we had a parent organisation that is great at transporting people and things around the world. Maybe they could transport cadets, rather than on a bus.
Think big? Get cadets flown in on a C-17 or similar? I’m sure the pilots are always needing to keep hours up, so the actual cost to the RAF will be relatively minimal if it’s done as a training/CPD sortie? Plus, it’s some great AEF for the cadets too! It might make it more accessible to cadets nationally and actually live up to a national muster!
That would be an incredible experience. Surely enough stored up in civ com funds up and down to the country to purchase a Herc or 2 aswell. But in all seriousness that would be excellent
If one CWC can buy a rugby club, surely multiple baneded together can buy a herc 
I think it’s actually attainable too. I know cadets who’ve had the pleasure of flying as a passenger during A2A refueling sorties. So why not fly some cadets from Lossie down to Brize for the day? (as an example) Might even be cheaper than a Phoenix coach 
The A400s & used to be Hercs use Leeds Bradford Airport as touch and go practice from Brize. Could be mutilple pick-up opportunities there!
Where do they land?
There’s no RAF airfield capable of landing a C17 for 3 hours for me / my Wing.
Touch and gos are cheap from what I understand, Actual landing is not. Would cost too much.
They had the Lancaster yesterday randomly. The larger RAF stations could easily take A400s due to their short take off capacity however it is all about investment
And all the cadets who were flown in would have had their AEF and not have to be flown again during the day - moving the flying stats closer to 100%.