Staff Ranks

Adult Staff The Staff Mess
1

I was speaking with a friend who’s a service instructor about how the ranks work in the cadet organisations and I found myself wondering why it’s done the way it’s done…

You start at SNCO, regardless of whether you have as much experience as a senior cadet, you have officer ranks at the lower end that don’t get so much use (although I guess that’s changed a bit now, with everyone dropping back to flying officer), your SNCO ranks are gained in fairly short order, and aren’t linked to appointments like your officer ranks now seem to be, and there doesn’t seem to be any split between who can do what job, bar commanding a wing, which hasn’t yet been a SNCO or CI…

So I was just wondering, why don’t you start from scratch and link them all to roles.

You could all be SNCOs, bar sqn cdrs, sector cdrs, and wg cdrs, free to sail up and down all the ranks depending on your job.

Or, as you literally run a cadet NCO training factory, why don’t you all be plt off, key sqn roles are fg off, sqn cdr is flt lt, big wing staff jobs, sector commanders, and dep OC wing are sqn ldr, and OC wg is wg cdr?

Your sqn staff at plt off can still teach drill as some SNCOs may now do, they can still teach other subjects. Practice anything and you’ll be good at it…

HERESY! But I just feel like the way it is currently done is weird, and probably the result of incremental change to a wonky system.

Like Richard Dawkins and that nerve in the giraffe’s neck that should just go from A to B in a few centimetres near the heart, but incremental change through evolutionary time means it’s now feet long and goes right up its neck and back down again…

Anyway, something about simplifying your ranks and bringing more sense and status to them depending on the role you do…

Aaaaaand. Go! Tear me apart.

1 Like
2

If we’re linking ranks to appointments, then I’d have sqn commanders as sqn ldrs (but make smaller units flts rather than sqns).

1 Like
3

I bet this thread will derail into a CI vs Uniform debate within 20 posts! :sweat_smile:

But @MajorDisaster, I’m pretty sure this has been discussed at length elsewhere. It does always seem to generate a lot of debate around this subject!

2 Likes
4

The old “detached flight” terminology could come back then.

Keep your squadron badge, but on paper your unit gets downgraded and you get a demotion :joy:

1 Like
5

Post 2 of 20
thats-funny

Moves have started with ‘restricting’ WO ranks…

…but the restrictions read more like everyone gets it so long as they have a job - its just the tea drinkers that don’t qualify

1 Like
6

I’d heard it was just going to be for WWOs, RWOs, etc. is that just a rumour?

7

It would make sense. Or for those SNCOs who are OCs and/or hold Wing posts.

1 Like
8

Type A sqns should probably be scaled for a Sqn WO as well, to complement their sqn ldr OC.

1 Like
9

Runour, its down to Regional Comdt what justifys a role

10

So ‘local rules’? One region with 40 WOs and another with 500!

11

A better question is why does anyone care? We went a huge number of years only having warrant officers and no one cared. Now, everyone gets their pants in a twist overcomplicating everything. All our ranks are made up - it makes no odds in the real world so why stop people from being any particular rank.

11 Likes
12

:moneybag: :moneybag: :moneybag:

VA.

13

Watch the Commandant demote EVERYONE to AS1 to make his VA savings!

14

Even better as the pay scales don’t include private equivalent for VA

15

Ok…

Not everyone

I’ve known former CWO and fresh faced CIs witj no prior experience appointed to both Sgt and Plt Off ranks

You mean the ACF model?

This is the ACF model except with a bias towards Officers rather than SNCOs

The introduction of Sgt and FS makes sense as to avoid top heavy “premium” rank being held by all which upset the regulars.

Do i feel rank should be closely linked to role yes.

I also back a suggestion I’ve heard of a “chief tech” rank…and is for a specialist be that is shooting, FA, Radio AT or whatever. Gives recognition to the right people with useful skills/experience/knowledge without the expectation of a rank which doesn’t reflect their skillset

1 Like
16

That’s a very interesting idea.

I suppose the biggest confusion is that it’s no longer clear why there are two rank structures for staff when you all do the same thing, same training etc. if you end up with differently-ranked people doing the same things, the commissioned/non-commissioned divide starts to look a little pointless.

17

As much as I agree that difference should be meaningful, the CCF has recently gone the opposite way: from being all officer staff (with the exception of SSIs) to offering SNCO CFAV options (apparently, simply because not everyone wants to go down the commissioner route).

18

Perhaps it does then make more sense to knock everyone down and then use commissioned ranks for the really big leadership roles, everything else is NCO, but again signifying the level of responsibility.

And to make it all work well, everyone freely slides up and down the whole structure as required.

Extra training available as required/desired, but no commissioned/non-commissioned divide that can only be crossed (one way). You get interviewed to establish suitability for the leadership role you’re going for at each stage (even if similar has been held before).

19

again this is the ACF model as I understand it…

Detachments are run by SNCOs, and only above are Officers and even then not necessarily the next senior level

20

That’s not how it works around here. There are a few ACF detachments led by SNCOs, but our local one is a 2Lt (Plt Off) and the one next to my old squadron is led by a Maj (Sqn Ldr)

1 Like