Tayside Aviation Bust

2 ex Air Cadet / RAF Wing Commanders, one who had a ACPS

Ok sorry I’m going to need Private Eye style allegory or the equivalent of the professor leibstrom sock puppet to walk me through the skullduggery & political chicanery.

Although with the way the SNP & Indy ref 2 was looking 12-18 months ago an outside of Scotland provider does make sense

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Maybe the organisation saw this coming hence pulling out.

But Seeding Hedge moved the majority of their SEP aircraft to Spain to their “Fair Weather Base”

I still think they grew too big too quick too… too m7ch money spent on flashy advertising

Who thinks that this will be the final nail in the coffin of cadet scholarships ??

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so asking the RAFAC related question - those Cadets who applied for the ACPS course, and got through, and then got through the O18 change* are in limbo waiting for the new contract to be signed before they know the scholarship they have been awarded after jumping through the hoops and being fortunate to be O18 is confirmed???

*note is the reasons for that change still valid if moving to a new school (and thus new/different accommodation)?
(could they not be accommodated in 12x12s?)

Nah, they go up in a puff of smoke whenever anyone goes near them these days remember :wink:

Ha, my bosses first thought was about buying some of their fleet.

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I do hope not - bad news for Tayside but a forward thinking RAFAC organisation could do well to move to regional flying centres…

Silly me! :man_facepalming:

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There really should be a speedy announcement from HQRAFAC to advise of the circumstances / potential future outlook - from the reporting, none of this should have come as a surprise.

BBC story:

The administrators said that at the time of the purchase, the company had a significant liability for prepaid flying courses which affected its ability to generate income from new sales.

I would have thought that would be a positive for any business case - money in the bank & ability to plan against existing resources?

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There should be lots of things from HQRAFAC, but sadly it’s rarely the case.

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Very true - but arguably this is the top, top, top RAFAC core activity & should have associated importance / priority apportioned for communication.

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But HQ had already announced the contract was coming to an end and we were looking at options moving forwards. Do they really need to make a big announcement in relation to their former supplier?

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Unable to generate regular revenue through new sales while servicing existing sales. If servicing those sales outstrips the length of time your cash lasts then you become either illiquid or insolvent.

It sounds like they could just be illiquid and a cash injection would have kept them going; whether future revenue would justify that injection, considering there was already 1.5mil put in, seems unlikely.

However illiquid in this instance may as well be insolvent, because I can’t think of assets that could be sold that don’t affect delivery of their primary cash generating business.

Cash in the bank is a positive, but requires careful planning and resource management, perhaps a little luck with investments and operating conditions, and a close enough point of further, sufficient revenue to use that cash as a platform for future success. They ran out of time.

Taking the business whole could, I imagine, only be done by a far larger company already operating in that industry. Anyone who might take it as a standalone business is likely to be put off by the rapid failure after the last time it was bought.

Probably money already spent and with the contact ending nothing to replace it.

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Well, nothing seemingly had filtered down to grass roots about change of contract - & probably at the time, no need to.

All bets are off now, Tayside may have been a strong contender in any tendering process, but depending on what stage the process had got to, & how many companies had expressed an interest (what if Tayside had been the only one?), there is a huge degree of uncertainty. As outlined by @Giminion, there could be a significant degree of caution from potential providers.

Add it all up, yes, HQRAFAC need to push out comms.

Not very clever accounting if that was the case… Who would audit Tayside’s books to consider financial stability?

Probably the same as the SNP :roll_eyes:

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