If there are only 500 BTEC’s available in the first year, with over 900 Sqn’s - one BTEC for every 2 Sqns??
I think it’s 500 free BTECs to encourage sign up.
The probably only 10% of what they would need to provide to get critical uptake of the award.
If they are smart they’ve got funding for the first 500 no strings attached with the next 500 also free provide they get the sign up & completion in a certain timescale.
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Having listened to the live stream, it does sound like a good amount of effort has been put into it… but I can’t help think it sounds purely theoretical and not very hands on 
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Can’t imagine the RA for a (cadet) crewed Mars mission…
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Is Warrant Officer Ripley on the crew manifest, attracts trouble that one😁
I comes across well meaning but a bit of an ego project as part of the RAFs need to dominate the space domain.
However as command has now been based to an Army Officer it may be that the RAF has lost the political argument & is being edged out of the space domain.
Space Command was always meant to be a joint command (see the purple badge for evidence) so it makes sense the next boss isn’t RAF. The previous incumbent has been promoted to 3* and a deputy commander of the US space force so doubt that can be seen as the RAF losing interest or influence.
Back on topic, not sure how interesting another highly theoretical educational qualification will be to cadets!
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It’s safe sitting in a classroom but how attractive is it to those who have little interest in the subject but who prefer shooting and out door activities?
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…CFAVs on Sqn.
This is what i question. While the org has 80 years of aviation history it has been able to “recruit” aviation interested CFAVs.
Space although not a new concept is still very specialist…there are few hobbist astronauts for instance. So its a case of everyone learning together
That aviation link is itself stretched or diminished.
Not counting the much larger RAF estate we once had, we also had multiple aviation companies in and around the UK. Those must have supplied a good number of CFAV in the past (Hawker and Vickers in Surrey, De Havilland in Herts, Supermarine in Hants, Westland and Gloster out Bristol way - those are just in the South and just the airframers).
Low cost airlines, useful as they are, don’t have the same interest.
Are we moving away from ‘air’ cadets to ‘RAF’ cadets? That isn’t necessarily a bad thing and if we are then space (and cyber) should be part of that, but we also need to keep the AT, military skills, ceremonial and even music and sports going too.
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Is the ATC at the first turn of actually becoming what it has been nicknamed for many years?.. 
If so, we need to up the cyber game. For an “Air, Space and Cyber” organisation, we’ve only just got a vaguely suitable space syllabus and the Cyber syllabus (bar the Gold course and CyberFirst course options) is woefully out of date and just not fit for purpose. I know this is one of the things that is supposedly being looked at under reprofiling but I really hope we can do better on this.
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I doubt any of those have closed; they’ll just be either BAE Systems or Leonardo now.
Oh they have, yes Westlands is part of Leonardo but Vickers at Weybridge and Dehavillands are museums, Hawker is a housing estate.
My point is the aviation industry is much smaller than it was, space is growing though although from a small base.
So despite launching the new Space Syllabus at RIAT, and advertising on our website that cadets will be able to apply to complete the Pearsons Level 2 Certificate in Space Studies from September . . . just noticed this comment on the Space page of the Cadet Training Resources Portal
So
A) we’ve not released the training material yet, and don’t plan to until October
B) we’ve run Train-the-Trainer sessions (anyone heard of any happening?)
That’s news to me! Id have been interested to attend had I known!
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snap, I’ve heard nothing about them.
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I attended a Blue and Bronze train the trainer for Space Last Autumn, but I was under the impression the course content may be changing with the BTEC so that might not even be valid.
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