New Formation Patch (TRF)

There’s a fair number of Army units that wear diagonal TRFs (RLC, Royal Irish Regiment, 7 REME etc) Not in RAF colours though, of course.

I can’t comprehend the motivation behind wanting to make cadets and CFAVs indistinguishable from service personnel.

The RFA wear insignia that distinguish them from RN and ACF, despite wearing the cap-badges of their affiliated regiments and corps, have their own TRFs along with very helpful ‘cadet’ rank slides for U18s, which I notice some CCF(RAF) cadets also wear with No. 3 SD.

Service personnel are targets, at home and overseas, and you should be very wary of being mistaken for them: especially considering you are generally operating ‘outside the wire’ of secure MOD establishments, without an armed guard, QRF, etc.

…but only when it rhymes with “bee”

Sorry mate, you’re just off your chain.

Anyone who want to kill anyone who could plausibly be service personnel isn’t going to be overly disappointed if they end up killing CFAV. If you think someone who wants to kill SP is going to research different TRF’s to see who’s a target and who isn’t, you’re on Crack.

If you want to remove staff and cadets from this risk (and it is a risk) - Fusilier Rigby wasn’t in uniform, he just ‘looked right’ and was next to Woolwich barracks, he could easily have been a CFAV picking up some shirts, or talking to someone about a ToPL application - then you need a uniform that looks like the Scouts, with beards and sandals for all.

Anyone who can’t tell the difference between a 6’2" Para, and a 13yo kid - whatever they are wearing - is as much a hazard to themselves as anyone else. If they are happy to kill someone who is obviously a 13yo playing dressing up games, then their target set is simply ‘everyone’, and amount of identifiers will stop them.

Personally I don’t think the ACO should wear the RAF TRF because we’re not really part of the RAF, I think we should wear a single formation badge, all ranks, all wierd and wonderful commissions, but it’s not a hill I have any interest in dying on.

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From the POV of a current cadet, this is a good change even if it is simple or “unimportant”. I only know a handful of cadets who actually wear the Air Cadet TRF as it is now, because its ugly, outdated and not exactly easy to come by for most. I personally don’t wear it 90% of the time because it’s not nice to wear and is realistically not something anyone can enforce being worn because many don’t have access to them even if they wanted to. This TRF however, as agreed by most of my friends, actually looks really good and I’m excited to have them on my uniform.

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Oh yeah, from a cadet pov this is awesome news. The trapezoid sucked from day 0.

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Then we’re entirely in agreement and I don’t know what all the arguing is about.

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It was because you were talking some nonsense about the law of armed conflict buddy.

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Sigh.

  1. Distinction is one of the cornerstones of IHL. Principle of distinction | How does law protect in war? - Online casebook

  2. As established in the Nuremberg Trials, we hold any and all potential adversaries to the same standards.

  1. You’re applying laws of combat to those who don’t care, because anyone targeting people in this country really don’t. I’m pretty sure the double decker bus and underground trains weren’t White Fleet.

  2. It’s time for everyone to move on to something else, like how pretty the gold stitching is or something specific to the TRF itself, its wear, and the policy related to it.

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the gold stitiching is pretty, but the face on that poor bird. traumatic.

To be fair, one of my original points was how much better the gold looks than the previous black on navy / maroon design.

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I think the eagle looks naff & far to ATC-y

It looks like “yes we are all part of the same Air Cadets but only if we do it the ATC way”

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The face is a little cartoony, but I’m not sure how easily that could have been overcome.

Personally, I’m pleased to see something of the ATC’s identity be carried forward.

But back to that bird…

Is it meant to look forward or is it just that it always looks to its left? Without checking, doesn’t the albatross face rearward?

I think the albatross is meant to face rearwards. It may be apocryphal but I did hear that it was meant to be an eagle but the the cap badge was so badly drawn that when it came back people claimed it was meant to be an albatross rather than admit their mistake or incompetence…

I think the eagle. looking to its left make it look a bit sinister.

Isn’t it supposed to be a falcon?

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image

:face_with_raised_eyebrow::thinking:

No idea - I’ve heard eagle, “falcon” & albatross as descriptions but nothing formal & it’s not mentioned at all in any of the ACPs.

On a side note - I see that the post on Facebook from Green Frog has disappeared….

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Can we just call it “clever girl” and be done with it at this point?

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here is an artists representation of the TRF if the bird looked forwards… maybe its better how it is.

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I’ve certainly heard ‘eagle’ and ‘albatross’ used for the bird on the officers’ capbadge / NCA rank slides / Pathfinder badge, ‘sh**ehawk’ used for the patches on enlisted aviators’ No. 1 jackets, but was always taught the bird on the ATC badges was a falcon.

Like you, I can’t find this in writing. There must be an heraldic description of the badge somewhere …

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