I foolishly thought that this was one of the intentions when Dundee folded & the replacement location(s) were being investigated / contracted by 2FTS Commercial Team. Travel would be reduced, accommodation may not be required… Never catch on.
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Where’s the conflict of interest in a professional pilot being in the Honourable Company of Air Pilots?
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I think it’s more that they award scholarships yet his boss doesn’t think their governance is good enough as they only have caa sign off
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Great, let’s get more ‘doers’ out, so the naysayers can have completely free reign…
That could be a simple disagreement rather than a conflict of interest. There are probably many organisations we’re all members of that don’t 100% align with everything our employers think.
just for reference, when ACTO035 was live, the accompanying 2 FTS Form 001 indicated
so there is already a precedent that these restrictions have been put in place. (although i never go far enough to get one of these forms filled out, i would have though all of these would be marked “N” with perhaps the exception to field landing for Gliding
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@Cab - Sir, isolating a truncated part of the post changes the tone somewhat, don’t you think - but I look forward to your reply shortening it further to “nonsense”
The point I was trying to make at the time, was… given how difficult it is to manage access to flying opportunities - surely it is not unreasonable to look at alternative means of delivery - because it is simply impossible to get sufficient access to ensure each cadet flies just once a year, let alone on multiple occasions per year…
I realise that you must think that I am over simplifying the process - or even being disrespectful - but please understand that I and most CFAVs have the utmost respect for the organisation - but above all, we want to see it excel - almost as much as we want to see the cadets excel.
This sense of pride, is what stirred me to ask the original question - “What could we be doing better?”
Inspiring the next generation “to promote among young people an active interest in aviation and the RAF” (thanks for the reminder @SecretSquirrel) is going to be most easily achieved by getting the cadets in the air.
But, each AEF is already restricted by the number of aircraft, use by UAS or for operational use to train other pilots. Then compound this with the temperamental British weather while trying to fairly spread the opportunities across squadrons (of differing sizes) and you see how, most cadets will be “lucky” to get just one flight during their career as a cadet.
I’ve no doubt that this is in part due to how short a period of time many cadets remain within RAFAC - with most squadrons prioritising cadets that have never flown before. But how do we persuade those cadets to stay longer, if their chances of another flight are slim to none.
By restricting the access to flying in all forms, we are removing our USP.
If this was the private sector, more would be done to improve the “customer experience - customer satisfaction - brand loyalty - brand referral - service take up” to avoid losing out to its competitors.
A private sector employer would also be looking to minimise churn of staff - causing the avoidable loss of invaluable skills, corporate knowledge and memory - because of the waste of time & money attached to it.
To which end, the private sector company would be looking to outsource that service provision to an appropriate provider that matched its own standards and values.
My intention has not been to be antagonistic or disrespectful - but to ask the hive mind of those already engaged in this forum of what could be done to improve the organisation.
If I had wanted to be antagonistic, I might send in a FOI request to ask how many AEF slots have been available across the corps? How many slots were cancelled? How many slots were filled? What is the breakdown of number of flights per cadet - how many have flown once, twice etc? Per capita, which squadrons have received the most slots?
But FOI requests are an odious waste of time and resources for any organisation that is already struggling.
I believe most CFAVs are of working age and in employment. Therefore the time they sacrifice to volunteer is at the expense of spending time with their families, whether that is evenings / weekends or by use of annual leave.
Many CFAVs like me, that are self employed don’t even have the luxury of a salaried income or paid leave to support our volunteering. If we’re not working, we’re not earning. We do however potentially have vastly greater levels of flexibility, by often being more in control of our work diaries.
But - I think I speak for most CFAVs when I say that we feel that our time is not valued because of the onerous hoops we’re made to jump through and barriers we have to cross. It is genuinely dis-incentivising many - you only need to take the temperature of many of the posts and comments in this forum to recognise how fair this remark is to everyone.
Most (non-flying) activities are successfully delivered by local collaboration / exploitation of local resources - but this does nothing to bolster national recognition / brand image, that at our very core ought to be about flying.
But, rather than be argumentative, disrespectful or otherwise insubordinate - I sought to ask in one thread - “what could we be doing better?”
Being the AIR cadets - surely, getting more cadets in the AIR more OFTEN has got to be at the top of the list.
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It makes one wonder what today’s RAFAC is doing wrong regarding the lack of both powered flying and gliding. I was an ATC cadet for three years & three months in the early 1980s - during that time I had four Chipmunk flights and one in a Chinook. I also had two AEF slots cancelled because of bad weather, so that is one flying slot every six months. I was also offered by my squadron a gliding course at the local AEG (in Kent Wing both the AEF & AEG were at RAF Manston, with another AEG at West Malling airfield). I didn’t take that up, because I preferred to go smallbore rifle shooting at the weekends with the squadron.
None of these opportunities were anything unusual to be given to an ATC cadet in those days. Apart from that, we did mostly Classification classroom training, with the occasional field or navigation exercise, Annual and Easter Camps, DoE activities, and the usual mix of attendance at local events on weekends for various tasks or ATC recruiting.
Maybe we are now either trying to do too much at too high a standard of administration or teaching, or patterns of work and life have changed, giving us CFAVs less time, or, as the similar topic suggests, the RAFAC has outgrown the RAF and its time and resources.
Or all of the above and some other causes, such as the Chipmunk and Kirby Cadet Mk III being more robust aircraft: they were never grounded en masse due to servicing or construction problems.
The RAFAC is like a Landrover with a rusty chassis: stop trying to weld patches on it and pay the money to get a replacement one which is galvanised. It’s like buying a new vehicle, and you still has the old one.
But then, who’d want a career in aviation these days? Joining the RAF is like trying to get into a secret society - it’s that much reduced, everyone must know each other by their first names nowadays - and civil aviation has lost the glamorous image it had up until the 1980s, what with strikes over pay and conditions, cheap & nasty airlines and guilt about the environmental cost of it all. Perhaps the RAFAC is becoming a youth organisation where the military and aviation aspects of it are of minor relevance compared to times gone by. 
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a lot of it this…by and large the Corps over the decades has remained about the same size while the RAF has halved in size over the last 30 years
while i only know of one Squadron which has closed in my time in our Wing, there have been handfuls of RAF stations and airfields that have closed in that time nationally.
as much as the “super VGS” are talked about, in my attendance they seem no more “super” than before, they too have shrunk in size (with the only aspect that has expanded being the catchment area)
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Your reply personifies what I call inside the wire/outside the wire views on life.
I find it disconcerting that he is part of the RAFAC chain saying “no” to cadets flying in non-Service (civilian) aircraft, but he is part of the Air Pilot chain saying “yes” to non-cadets flying in civilian aircraft.
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Exactly - which begs the question - if the rules by which RAFAC have to play by can’t be met, then perhaps we ought to change the rules - or at the very least amend them to become acceptable.
For example minimum engine capacity, max cadet weight limits, no aeros… but lets let them up in the air
Which as I stated up thread is a serious conflict of interest, so the gentleman should recuse himself in any capacity from any awarding of flying scholarships in the future.
Nonsense! (
)
Thanks for the measured question. This is a question of trust and judgement. If I had capacity to assure a different way of flying Cadets, I would…but my judgement is that, at this time, I do not have this capacity. There are numerous reasons for this but it largely relates to my personnel (CFS & CGS) focusing on regulatory assurance of 2 and 6 FTS activity. My 32 years of experience underpins this judgement and 10 years in formal Air Safety related roles eg Delivery and Operational Duty Holder for 13 aircraft types. I will reiterate that I am directed to apply additional assurance and I don’t play loose and free with the safety of people’s children. Not risk aversion, of course, ACPS demonstrates this is not the case.
I will challenge your notion of USP. Our USP is a military flying experience and this is my priority. Again, I understand some might disagree, so be it, but we are the RAF Air Cadets and the umbilical is important. If ‘just flying’ is your thing, just go and do it but not as a Cadet.
I will challenge your notion of the USP.
For the ATC at least, the stated aims in the Royal Warrant are:
It’s to encourage a practical interest in aviation and the Royal Air Force, not to encourage a practical interest in Royal Air Force aviation. If you think we should be focusing solely on the military aspect may I suggest you write to His Majesty and ask him to alter the Warrant (and maybe give my former colleagues their military commissions back)
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One of the reasons I loved being an Air Cadet (before we became the Grounded Cadets) was that it gave me the opportunity to do something I otherwise would never have been able to do; fly.
I grew up on a council estate to a father displaced by the Northern Ireland conflict and a pad brat mother. We never had any money growing up, I even had to share a room with my sister until I was 7 and the council finally upgraded us to a 3 bedroom house.
“Just go do it” reeks of elitism and is a black mark against you personally. It demonstrates a distinct lack of understanding of who our cadets are and how much the ATC in particular, being the community-based part of RAFAC, can help young people achieve goals that are otherwise out of reach.
Frankly, my view of you has declined significantly from what you have just said and I have lost all remaining confidence that you know anything worthwhile about the Cadet Forces. Stand down.
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So a quick win on this - could we try & restore cadets having opportunity experience flights during the kings birthday fly past?
It’s a unique military flying experience which gives cadets that RAF link even if it isn’t a full AEF or AEG.
However it seems to be last minute so could this be factored into the planning stage now so come May/jube everything is in place?
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I have reached out to colleagues to ask about AEF activity with the AM Force. Standby…
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Do not accuse me of being elitist please. Do some research and you might find the black mark is unwarranted.
I am simply reflecting the tone in here where multiple contributors have cited the seemingly simplicity of civ flying inc the relative (low) costs. You cannot have it both ways; civ is either cheap and accessible or it’s not.
But, no, I am not of a ‘let them eat cake’ background.
We seem to saying that our USP is Flying. I disagree. I believe that our Unique Selling Provision in comparison to other Military Youth Organisations is that we give our members the opportunity for stick time at a ridiculously low cost (a recent local discussion indicated that 1 squadron has subs at £6 per month, which is £72 a year, my last unit was £20, £240 a year, and parents still claimed it was too cheap.
As I highlighted in another thread the concept that there is no flying is simply not true
As I’ve said for the last few years of induction nights, by being a cadet you give yourself the opportunity to fly, not a guarantee that you will fly. How many units have been offered zero flying opportunities this year? It’s up to the cadet/parent to sign up to the opportunity and accept that not everyone who wants something gets it!
This can be done in ways other than being in the air holding the control column, in fact the classification syllabus covers this aim off very successfully.
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