I’m about to apply for the Air Cadet pilot scheme, but was wondering which one to put as my first choice?
The ‘Light Aircraft Course’ (civvie) gives you more flying and you get to go powered solo.
The ‘AEF course’ (RAF) is less flying, no solo, but is more like service flying, i.e. low level etc.
I genuinely want to join up as a pilot and I am already solo in gliders. I like the idea of Dundee as its lots of flying and solo, but think the AEF might look better on an RAF application when the time comes.
I don’t think either will reflect better than the other on an OASC application. They’ll almost certainly be considered the same level of achievement.
From a practical point of view, your reasoning is logical. If the Tutor was to stay as the EFT aircraft I’d probably have reasonably strongly favoured the latter purely as it would give you Tutor time and cover some more “advanced” parts similar to the EFT syllabus. The former up to first solo at Dundee would just be replicated at EFT anyway, so you’d possibly gain less.
With the 120TP arriving and probably being the sole EFT type by the time you’d join I still might probably just favour the latter - but it’s your choice, not mine!
I appreciate the advice on Dundee, but what about the merits of the respective courses?
I have spoken to a few people who have done the civvie course, but no one who has done the RAF one.
I did the AEF course - however it was the tester one (circa 2002) and I don’t know if it has changed much since the original concept. It was a great course, covered basic control, low-level, aeros, 2 x nav land-aways etc. We did a ghosted solo at the end of the course, but you’re right that you can’t actually go solo.
Why not look into the RAFA scheme and IIRC GAPAN offer(ed) scholarships among others and they may be easier to access, rather than just the ATC route. As suggested I don’t think it will matter on the OASC form and I think you need to look to see which one gives you better options if the RAF goes tits up.
Interesting. I know/have taught a couple of people who have done the AEF course and they both did very well at EFT and got their first choices at streaming.
If we assume, as seems to be the consensus, that neither will give you any advantage at OASC, you then need to take a step further and look to how it would assist at EFT (should you persue a service flying career). That is where I suspect the AEF course, assuming it is still the same content, would probably assist better - you’ll be taught up to the solo standard at EFT anyway and the back end of EFT is more difficult than the first bit. It gets you used to service QFIs too, even if they may be retired and/or part time (they’re mostly very good ones too).
As mentioned though, there are plenty of other scholarships around, including several that appeared after the sad demise of the old Flying Scholarship scheme) and there’s no harm in applying for as many as you can!
I should clarify, further to my last post, that I’ve also flown and taught several more than capable, very successful students who’ve done the course at Dundee.
