Great minds think alike. Potentially of great benefit to RAFAC.
Nail, head, hit. It just needs the risk-averse gentry to extract the digits from their derrieres & stop trying to negate 110% of risk with a solid gold / diamond encrusted solution, when many of the proposed organisations (CAA- approved flying clubs / BGA facilities) already have suitable over-sight.
It’s not the gold solution they’re worried about; it’s that golden senior officer pension if anything goes sideways and they get the boot.
I’m not a legal bod, but I’m amazed that the issue of liability even comes up. If the RAFAC buy a service from the BGA or a flying club, if it goes wrong how could it possibly be the RAFAC’s fault…?
Anyway, other places manage it, and it might mean someone with a big bar code has to stick up for themselves or the organisation, and that’s a risk of going wrong, and it’s not the cadets they care deeply about - it’s retiring at 60 on a lovely pension.
I’m not a legal bod either so I’m sure someone may correct this, but I imagine it’s because we as the RAFAC are placing that trust in them and we should have a robust checklist to ensure it’s safe for our cadets and staff. Someone from our end that ensures their end is safe.
But this has already been done by the BGA or the CAA.
You mean like ACPS at Tayside? Principle already set.
Fair dos 
like I say I’m not an expert in this field. Merely someone super frustrated by the current predicament.
You think RAFAC / RAF can provide better / comparable oversight than the CAA or BGA? HQ2FTS didn’t even seem to want to include gliding in ACTO35 until I went kicking very hard on their door; Wg Cdr Flying was very surprised. 
Discussed minimum experience parameters with the Chair of BGA knowing full well that whatever was suggested would be multiplied by 100% by HQ2FTS (it was, or close enough to it).
If anything, and this is how ludicrous the liability argument is;
We fly cadets in service grobs, with service instructors, on service insurance… where if anything goes wrong with the aircraft, the instructor or anything, it is 100% the RAF’s fault.
Yet a commercial operator, training people to fly, in aircraft maintained on a public CofA, with fully trained, audited and in currency pilots, all to CAA or BGA standards - where if anything goes wrong it is legitimately the companies fault… can’t fly.
I’m sure if it would mean money spent that clubs would let the RAFAC look at and audit their paperwork to prove their instructors/aircraft etc are just so.
But as per the above given the CAA or BGA already do this and police it enthusiastically, why would we need to?
I can’t wrap my head around it.
This was a prospective plan; I went to the Gransdens with the then R Av O. The plan was have pre-approval for a group of BGA locations so that all that would have been needed was a simple “can we go gliding please?” request rather than the death by permission application as per ACTO35.
Sounds sensible to me.
And they call the CAA “the Campaign Against Aviation” - child’s play compared to the RAFAC on ACTO. 35!
Didn’t the 75th logo feature a glider as well?
Although maybe thoughts of the next step are on CAC’s mind, he spoke about the rarity of fixed terms, and how that gives the ability to make change (not “change for the chenge’s sake”) and see it through. As others have said, make a hash of it and future prospects become more limited.
Better an eye on the next career move than a cottage in Cornwall…
Yup 
Did you not notice this mentioned ~19:50 Mark?
I even quoted him in my post above…he said he wants CFAV to return to delivering activities rather than administering them…
Not that I mean to remind us all of these tragedies but…
BBC News - Glider pilot relives Drayton plane crash
Things have gone wrong in the past.
6 people lost their lives. 1 family lost two members of theirs (the Welsh cadets were cousins)
Its not the right time and place to discuss the ins and outs now but given this is as bad as it could get…who suffered in the RAFAC hierarchy?
Did someone lose their job?
Did a senior RAF (RAFAC) Officer get dismissed and lose their pension?
Did we see a real change in oversight to AEF to avoid it happening again?
As far as I’m aware you can answer “no” to all of these with three actions coming out.
The upper age of AEF pilots reviewed and reduced
Instructions to not put related cadets in the air simultaneously
FLARM system installed into the aircraft
Ok so those senior bods deal with the guilt they feel daily at what happened but the point I’m making is the RAFAC isn’t perfect…
I know I’d feel like my nose was pushed out of joint if the RAF came knocking on my BGA door making sure I’m safe when their own levels of safety were not necessarily safer…(until too late)
While I have no intention of getting into a safety debate my understanding of the AEF system is that it was not an RAFAC responsibility at the time of these tragic accidents and is not the responsibility of the RAFAC now. Happy to be corrected.
Steve, thank you, yes it is always worth drawing our minds back to the inherent risks that flying poses - and bitter and heartbreaking experiences of the past should always be learnt from.
And also yesterday the news of another 737 going down - in passenger aviation, the safest form of travel.
In the local clubhouse the general consensus is that yes, aviation has a reputation for being very safe generally… however light GA the risk profile is probably better off compared to riding a motorbike.
I’m not sure what figures have been used, but I’ve heard that a few times. Maybe it is just a way to force people into thinking properly about the risks.
Every time an aircraft takes off there is no guarantee that the flight will happen safely.
And we have a choice, either learn from the experiences and work our socks off to be as safe as possible - as you mention; added equipment, rules on family flying etc… or we stop altogether.
Being an air minded organisation I don’t think we should be stopping certified flying experiences from outside organisations.
Being in the GA community it is always horrifying when you hear of accidents, the thought it could be a friend or colleague - the impact on families…
As long as those parents and cadets understand the risk - maybe best to use the motorbike comparison - then as long as we are sensible, using commercial operators etc then I don’t see how we would be being unsafe.
The organisation has seen tragic accidents in AT, but we continue to offer DoE / AT camps.
Accidents will always happen, as sad as it is.
Has it? Genuine question, I’m not aware of any AT related deaths in the organisation certainly in recent times.
There’s a few that get spoken about in the lakes? Or was that not actually in the RAFAC? It might have been scouts?
Apologies if I’ve got that wrong, but I was thinking there was a serious accident on an AT activity. If not RAFAC then I apologise.
The Army cadets have had a few fatalities due to AT in the last 10 Years.
None in the RAFAC as I can recall.
NOTE with ref to army cadets. The guidance that was in place was surfactant at the time - staff just didn’t follow it.
Any specifics, out of interest? I’m aware of a few incidents but no fatalities. PM if you like as it’s not too relevant to this topic.