IBM 22/22 was released on the 1st Jun.
The junior ranks of the Royal Air Force, from 1 Jul 22 will be renamed as follows:
Aircraft man (AC) - Air Recruit (AR)
Leading Aircraftsman (LAC) - Air Specialist (class 2) (AS2)
Senior Aircraftsman (SAC) - Air specialist (Class 1) (AS1)
Senior Aircraftsman Technican (SAC(T)) - Air specialist (Class 1) Technician (AS1(T)).
Doesn’t really affect the ACO tooooo much I wouldn’t have thought, all adult staff are SNCO or above, and cadet is obviously not specific to gender.
Be interesting to see if there is follow on from this in the organisation.
It follows on from the gender neutral renaming of airmen to aviators, which is a gendered term anyway but there we go…
The only thing I don’t really like is that (T) at the end of something has precedent for meaning training. So it looks like AS1(T) is the junior/training version of AS1. Otherwise I don’t really think the change will make much difference.
SAC(T), and now AS1(T) is the only time I’ve seen it mean technician. (And thus the addition of (T) being more senior) Thought it would be a good time to get rid of the (T)! Outside the MoD I’ve often seen it mean training. Like ‘ML(T)’ or CWA(T)’ to show someone’s done the training but not the assessment. And event within the RAF there’s RAFVR(T).
It’s a very minor issue from me, but SAC(T) has always caught me off guard
Interestingly, no matter how much techies will say it does mean they’re senior (to be fair, I would as well ) it isn’t a senior rank to SAC (or should that be AS1?).
Only means you’ve been awarded your Q-Ops competency on JPA, which means you’re trusted to not be 100% supervised.
We’ve got Second Class and First Class Cadets already, so Class 1 and Class 2 would be confusing. I’ve always hated Second Class cadet as a classification, so that would be good to change.
How about:
Junior/Second Class = Recruit
First Class = Basic Cadet
Leading = Cadet (Class 1)
Senior = Cadet (Class 2)
Master = Master?
