I think you’ve just lost most of your audience on here.
Separately, I have just had a detailed reply from the CEO of the Air League, including a copy of SLA & MoU for scholarships. I shall be following up with her.
I don’t see anything that is insurmountable - or resource intensive - to stop RAFAC utilising this wealth of experience as a way to get cadets airborne in civilian aircraft (or “non-Service” aircraft as RAFAC calls them).
Only a sith deals in absolutes
(Seriously, though, affordability and accessibility is subjective, we should be aiming for equity)
Respectfully, this is not an accurate representation of what you have seen.
The RAFAC would save money by utilising civilian services to boost flying opportunity.
Your comments relate to only permitting flying to those who can afford to pay for flying period.
Not to drive the point home too sharply, but poor people can’t be prioritising flying lessons. The ATC provided amazing opportunities for people who can’t afford flying lessons.
Look at the situation at Leuchars, covers the majority of Scotland but can’t fly weekends due to lack of ATC. How easy would that problem be to fix? We have to fly during School holidays when most CFAV’s are working.
Yep - & when ACTO35 was around, our cadets / CFAVs didn’t mind fund raising so that cadets across our Sqn (“rich” or “poor”) could have the opportunity to go flying - this was of course during the “pause” (don’t me started on that fiasco).
Now, we are forbidden to organise flying in non-Service aircraft - where clearly, safety standards in ATOs & BGA are laid down (& enforced / audited). We don’t have the option to support any cadets now, let alone the poorer ones (who have never flown in a commercial aircrfat as their parents can’t afford it, let alone a private aircraft / glider).
I got 2FTS to incorporate gliding in ACTO35- this hadn’t been considered initially; we were one of the first sqn (if not the first) to go gliding under ACTO35. Our local gliding centre (Cambridge Gliding Club) was very flexible for a bulk package on the day. Everyone a winner.
Oh, 2FTS hadn’t even looked at doing an in-house scheme for those cadets who were going to age out from their ACPS award - it was my suggestion to ofer a Silver Gliding Scholarship & eventually it was taken up. It shouldn’t be up to a lowly CFAV to make a major policy change (twice)
Get the RAFAC lawyers to draw up a disclaimer letter for parents / guardians to sign:
"Dear whoever,
This is to advise that any flying / gliding opportunities organised (& / or financed) by your local squadron are purely private arrangements that are not endorsed by those in the Ivory Towers. Any liability is solely on the flying / gliding organisation, & you should check this & their associated insurances before your little Johnie or Josephine takes part in such flying activities.
Love & kisses,
HQ RAFAC"
The Air Cadets is for AVIATION - not just RAF aviation.
And at Wittering. Hey, you have XX slots for a week day. Ah, most CFAVs are working, who is going to drive them? Never mind that schools often won’t let cadets off for the day. There is a shortage of QFIs too (RAF-wide I think).
It’s a dysfunctional system.
Having spent years in youth work, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with young people from the full spectrum of economic backgrounds.
The course that I was responsible for delivering was largely funded, and required just a contribution of £50 from the participants (which we reduced to £10 for those eligible for Free School Meals, as we could claim additional funding for those people) for a 3-4 week course.
In some schools with whom I worked, there were families for whom the £10 was genuinely unaffordable and for whom we had to provide additional support to enable them to partake with their peers. This was particularly true for young people with EHCPs, or the children of some first generation migrants.
I would love to hear how @Cab believes those individuals can “just go do it” when even just a taster session at my local airfield in the UK costs at least £120 for a 30 minute flight - 12 times more than the discounted rate we offered our participants, that some still could not afford. I am beyond flabbergasted at such a substandard response from someone who is allegedly a leader, and genuinely quite angry at having had to read that this is how our senior leaders think. It just goes to show just how detached from the reality of the young people and hard working families that we work with these senior bods are.
I’m sure it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that what is affordable for an air cadet squadron with a Civilian Committee and all of its fundraising potential is not affordable to every cadets parents.
Cheap and accessible for Squadrons yes, cheap and accessible for individual cadets not so much.
On that jolly note, I’m off to fly a plane. On second thoughts I might stick the heating on instead…
Wow…
I have seen several cadets over the decades as a CFAV use cadet flying as a leg up to get a foothold into employment in flying as an stick-instrument interface. Something which their families would not have been able to afford on their own. I find your statement to be utterly tone deaf, and frankly is quite unbecoming.
But if we civilianised flying - isn’t this what we would be paying if not more?
As a comparison - what do the air scouts pay & get flying gliding wise?
You don’t have to stay in the organisation if you don’t feel like it works for you. All volunteering comes to an end at some point - it’s knowing when it’s reached it’s natural point to part waves.
The ability for a CWC to get a ‘bulk buy’ price would likely reduce costs.
If HQAC did that bartering at a ynational level, say with the BGA, those cost would be loads less.
We used to pay a lot less than that for gliding but maybe we were just lucky.
We would a) have bulk discount and b) be in a position to subsidise.
People aren’t asking to civilianise flying, just to have the authority to offset the current poor offer in many places with additional flying through other sources.
Economies of scale, plus funding from central.
Plus, knowing how much the military gets ripped off, I suspect we’re actually paying far more than that now once real costs are considered.
A dangerous thing to say to burnt out and fed up CFAV…
We have seen staff leave to the scouts; so they can just go and do camping.
We have seen staff leave to local BGA/flying clubs; so they can just go and do flying.
We have seen staff leave to local shooting clubs; so they can just go and do shooting.
We’ve seen staff leave to St John’s; so they can just go and do help in community events.
Just not as part of cadets.
So that might not be the threat to CFAV as you think it is. But it’s one heck of a threat to the staff levels of this organisation.
I’m surprised to see our leadership be so casual about staff “just” leaving.
I’m actually sat at an airport as I type this. Do you think they’ll let me “just go do it” if I ask the authorities nicely to borrow an aircraft?
Coming back to this.
Loads of people join our org literally for this. They want to fly. It’s our thing, or at least it should be.
To suggest we’re not about “flying”, instead we’re about “military flying” is just wrong. So wrong.
To add:
This seems like a moving the goal posts job to me. Because we cant do X we’ll just pretend X isn’t what we wanted to do…
It’s almost like lowering KPI targets to make everything look green.
