PPE was certainly mentioned in the 2019 RAs. Gloves for general use whilst striking camp. Gloves/Hard Hats/Glasses for pegging out.
The wording “A levy of £20 will be charged for all staff and cadets who attend the RIAT support camp. This levy funds items issued to RAFAC participants to enhance safety” seems to imply the £20 will go towards this stuff, as well as baseball caps etc.
My real point there is that cadets/staff are paying to attend an event that could not happen without their work. The payment should be the graft they put in!
Sussex Wing used to help out in a similar, but obviously smaller, fashion with Shoreham Air Show. I don’t ever recall having to pay to attend… They also had a big annual event where we managed loads of car parks. The cadets certainly didn’t have to pay for that, in fact, the Sqns CWCs got donations out of it!
Also as a side point, where does this money go? Which pot of money does it go through? HQAC GP Fund?
When we used to assist at the PFA rally, we got a VERY healthy donation from them.
Cadets & staff should not be expected to pay anything towards the work that they do.
Please forgive me as that is not one that I remember & google doesn’t bring it up. When was it & what happened?
Regarding the point re driving hours yes it is important that we are more mindful & we follow the regulations & best practise.
However that means that we should follow the regs as written for us & not impose extra bureaucracy. To do so risks damaging faith in the safety systems & leaves the door open for a culture where the regulations are ignored to creep in.
Can we deliver the camps & activities under the current regs - yes
Can we deliver them without the exceptions permitted to cdt corps - no we can’t & to try will encourage risky behaviour.
WTR gets tricky with volunteers as at what point does our hobby get classified as work?
As someone who was flight ic at riat 2022 i can honestly say the heat especially near the end was unimaginable.
On the hottest day it was painful to lay in the shade.
All my cdts were regularly made to drink water in great quantities it was however just too hot and crowded stageside. We even had a water sprayer and all cdts were encouraged to cool off. I partook the watersprayer many times myself. You dried out fully in a couple of minuets from being completely drenched.
Unfortunately even though they almost of tinitus from hearing me call out drink breaks i still had at least 1 cdt that got mild heatstroke.
Should we continue came into effect multiple times with afternoons or whole days being canned particularly the hot one.
Noone on the event wanted it to be canned and unfortunately i think it was being used as the poster child of poster child of the last event still to run when every other national event got canned.
Most people survived and were glad it continued given the circumstances it was a great event.
Some issues could have been avoided by having better hats and cooled tents or by having beds setup in the hangers
At least one of the hangars, IIRC is set up as a field hospital staffed by an AR unit, in case of a major disaster and there used to be an aircraft on the display line fitted out as an aeromedical evacuation aircraft. The USAF used to provide when they had them a C9 Nightingale and later the RAF provided a VC10 and two helicopters were tasked as emergency aircraft, and they were parked at the very rear furthest from the display line. I was there when the two MiGs collided and two helicopters suddenly lifted and sat off the field.
The other hanger probably has pre-positioned stocks for the B52s and B2s. The other two hangers belong to the U2s of 99ERW and nobody is getting there unless invited.
from memory there’s some bunker type things in the cadet camp area a couple are used for briefings and firstaid the rest could be used for cool sleeping
