Who regulate the military not the civil sector.
ahh sorry - i see what you meant - I thought you were referring to why RAF/CFS weren’t on the list as a PPL Provider
And as a ‘regulator’ the command influence regarding the MAA is shown in the Haddon Cave Report, the Hercules shoot down in Iraq, or ZD 576 disasters.
The MAA was formed because of the Haddon Cave Report. It’s strict regulation wasn’t in place before then.
But did it get rid of undue command influence?
Part of the reason the MAA framework is so strict is to remove any risk of command overcoming regulation. There’s no flexibility.
Yes the flashback from ZD 576 really caught the senior RAF officers involved badly out.
Grob Herons replaced by Aquila some years ago, but for the ‘official’ PPL courses (Sir Michael Knight etc.) they actually complete the PPL in a PA28 anyway.
SNI region ATC does some non-public funds flying for cadets in the Tayside PA28s, too; they can do this because they have the good fortune to have Tayside in their area.
Do they still run the Sir Michael Knight Scholarships??
No. So the only way of getting gold wings through powered flying has stopped!
How so? As previously discussed, surely if you go to Tayside for some/all of your training you’d be elligible for the Gold Wings.
It doesn’t say you need to have been sponsored/recieved a scholarship
This may be a silly question, apologies if it is, but is the entire Tayside operation CFS/RAFAC compliant?
What I mean by that is, are there some instructors there who don’t go through the utterly bonkers CFS process to be allowed to do the job they are already qualified to do?
If I was MD Tayside I’d dedicate the bare minimum in terms of staffing to that side of the hushes given how laborious it is. For the ‘normal’ business I’d just have some regular instructors who haven’t flown with the trappers to do that stuff.
My point is, are you getting a (box ticking) compliant wings grade PPL by just pitching up there necessarily?
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There is already a distinction between ATO and DTO. ATOs are regulated more closely by the CAA.
If it were considered that bog standard DTO PPL is not of sufficient instructional quality to qualify for gold wings there could be ways of stipulating a higher standard of instruction without CFS inspection.
For example,
Require gold wings PPL training to be conducted only by unrestricted flight instructors.
Require gold wings PPL training to be conducted at an ATO (not DTO),
Require Gold wings PPL training to be conducted at an ATO approved for CPL training and by CPL qualified instructors (FCL.905.FI (e)),
Require Gold wings PPL training to be conducted by UK qualified Flight Instructor Coruse Instructors (FICI) (FCL.905.FI (j))
OK, the last suggestion is a bit extreme, but it illustrates that there are different levels of instructor qualification in civilian flying training. To qualify as FICI an instructor must have at least 500 hours flight instruction experience and pass an Assessment of Competence with a CAA staff Flight Examiner (to a higher standard than the basic FI certificate).
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Let’s be honest, you’ll rarely find a FICI who is either willing or available (not busy teaching CPL/IR(R) or IR) to teach a lowly PPL.
Much easier to acomplish, but just because they’ve taught for 200hrs and have a total of 500hrs, doesn’t mean theyre a substantially better instructor
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OK, my last suggestion was maybe not entirely serious. Then again we are not talking about teaching “lowly PPL” we are talking about teaching air cadets to “gold wings” standard. An FICI who was also CFAV might be willing to teach a “gold wings” PPL course. There’s at least one who would be happy to do so 
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Sorry i forgot the " " or /s in my comment re: lowly
Meet in the middle, provided the instructor is a PPL FE(A)… then i’d also be happy to help (as long as the weather behaves this week and i can get this assessment of competance done 
Why am i willingly suggesting additional steps, RAFAC/2FTS should just trust the CAA and ATOs to do their bleeding day jobs, but we’re just going in circles
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Sorry am i being thick…
Isnt gold wings just for ppl?
Theres no extra lessons stipulated surely?
Or is my sarcasm meter needing more dosh?
He he, we’re being sarcastic about RAFAC not considering a PPL good enough for gold wings unless gained from an “RAFAC endorsed service provider” (currently only Tayside)
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Agreed. But it seems to me it is a matter of branding. The gold wings badge is to be branded with the letters RAFAC. Therefore it seems the RAFAC feel the need to exercise some form of quality control / official recognition regarding training standards.
Since the RAFAC are not willing to provide flying scholarship funding for the whole PPL course I am now coming to the conclusion that the gold RAFAC flying badge should be for AGT only, not for PPL, and there should be a separate gold “C” wings for any PPL (or sub ICAO aircraft pilot’s licence)
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The whole flying badge syllabus needs to be rewritten to something achievable.
And taken out of the PTS.
Utterly pointless insisting that progresion beyond blue is available for most.
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