An email was sent out yesterday. If you didn’t receive an updates then it’s probably down to your Wing or Region
On that topic, FYB is very animated by the fact that it’s been announced today that that WO is moving on, and his replacement is already sporting a beard…
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I, for one, am glad the IBN came out so swiftly. (It also updated the colour of earrings, so we can now wear silver (for those of us who are allergic to gold)).
I’m excited to see some battle braids (as the socials hashtag seems to be tending) although as it settles, I imagine we will see some friction just as when the beards policy came in…
Some of the mutants on Twitter and Facebook whinging that it will degrade standards.
Until the 18th century Soldiers had to queue and powder their hair, do they think the army should bring that back?!
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Some people don’t have lives if that’s the most important thing for them to winge about.
It’s simples like it or lump it
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Half of the comments I’ve seen don’t even appear to be from people currently involved in RAF or RAFAC…
I see two types of objection:
- Standards are dropping.
- What if it gets caught in equipment?
It only seems like a drop in standards because it is different to what you have lived with. Hair still has to be neat. This seems to be be a common argument of the older generation who just never like any kind of change. As for operating equipment, what is so difficult about wearing appropriate clothing and hair for the job? Most people aren’t operating equipment that would pose a hair risk on a day to day basis, so what is the problem? In the Army at least, females have been wearing hair down in the field for a long time, operating rifles and guns. It hasn’t proven itself a problem so far, so why would it in the office?
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Yep, ponytails getting caught in a xerox is a real danger… 
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Gotta watch out for the shredder.
In fairness… and I’m not joking here.
I have seen a girls hair get caught in the bolt carrier of an L98 during live firing…
I was Safety sup 3 lanes down. Just hadn’t seen the hair.
Proper minced her hair right up.
Duty RCO got reemed by lead RCO on the day when they found out 5 min later.
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Love it.
Now that hair down is permitted, I would have thought that long hair may be identified as a hazard during RA process, and the briefings amended to reduce the risk?
Good on the forces for pushing this through, I say!
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Long hair is already in my climbing/abseiling RA. Granted it’s not normally done in uniform…
Absolutely.
No reason for it.not to be so.
If ‘war fighting’ needed something different, then that can be dealt with at the time.
Else, it’s a good step forward.
yeh, getting beard hair stuck in a helmet clip is painful
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Where is the gender balance wrt boys having long hair and doing the same as girls with it.
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What… you want them to plait their beards? 
I have seen plaited beards among some of the boho types.
