Less staff at camps is usually down to available accommodation not inavailiability. If I had the bed space I’d have a 1:5 ratio for annual camps.
WRT the LGBT agenda - that’s a wider social issue and not something the MOD can say jog on to. The law kind of supports that theory as well.
I’m reading this thread with great interest, so much here I can relate too. My morale is at such an all time low I’m taking some time out to think do I really want to be involved anymore. Its quite likely I won’t return - quite enjoying having my evenings back to be honest.
From some of the comments and actions I get the very real impression that CAC doesn’t have the first clue about the organisation she’s in charge of and doesn’t fight our corner, probably as she’s been conditioned by being an officer in the RAF not to query, question or doubt anyone who is a higher rank than she is or what comes out in terms of policy … just blindly follow the order.
Words like leaner and meaner are all part of the BS we’ve been spun in our working lives to indicate that we have to do more and more for less and less. Which is fine in your day job when you can quite easily control staff and other levels, totally and absolutely impossible when you are in the voluntary sector.
She might make all the right noises and come out with the usual platitudes, but does she or the people running the Corps give a damn about the lives and problems we all face, day in, day out which affect what we do in terms of the Corps.
You have to wonder how long it is before the leaner/meaner mindset is applied to squadrons and we get the BS of ‘super squadrons’ back on the agenda. Frankly if the intent is to kill off the Air Training Corps, this is the path to take. Where we are there are squadrons a few miles apart, but it doesn’t follow that people will go to a “larger” sqn, which means fewer cadets as it becomes more reliant on parents to take cadets back and forth as public transport outside of large conurbations is to all intents non-existent. Fewer cadets means fewer ‘jobs (for the overpaid braided) boys and (more recently) girls’ who aren’t quite ready to lose the uniform. Which I think dawned on them a few years ago when this was a line of thought and disappeared.
Sorry don’t buy that, but is fully inline with the lack of foresight and so on that seems to be inbred in military circles.
If the gap in ATC cover was identified then they should have advertised at the start of the process, but then that takes some nous and not an attitude of sticking heads in the sand can’t do that and hope and pray the problem goes away.
Guys just to clarify the SCC course content was apparently changed 3weeks ago. My friend went on the new content course to which he said was very little PowerPoint but all the policy makers down giving lectures.
I did mine a few years ago and from the description given there is a difference in the 2 from the info given
And there lies the problem the other side of the fence, not wanting to accept that the wheels turn slowly in the MOD and you can’t just employ people as and when. Yes, HMG is a dinosaur and it will take many years to change, if ever but people have to realise that the military are not like, or do they operate like, any organisation outside in civvie land.
Wittering was quiet for many months between the demise of Harrier and the arrival of the UASs/5 AEF; would you expect staff to be kept on, being paid at tax payer’s expense, sitting there drinking coffee, waiting for the agreement for the move. You will probably find out that when Harrier left there was no planned use of the airfield, so positions were closed down to save money. Then someone came up with the idea of the UAS/AEF move, so the whole process had to be started from scratch. Believe you me, it is easy to close down position, but hard to start the process. If you want to blame anyone, blame George Osborne for reducing the MOD purse and forcing the MOD to meet his requirements!!
The move of the UASs up to Wittering would have been piggy-backed by 5 AEF as they operate the same aircraft, not as the lead. UASs operate during the week, and cover across the piece is/was in place; weekend operations would be ‘an extra’ requirement. The contract and workload would have been based on 5 day operations, to add an extra 2 days would mean changes to contracts, etc. And this is how long it takes.
The prime objective for the Tutor fleet is to train the UAS/EFTS pilots, AEF comes as an extra. So at the end of the day, the move to Wittering ticks all the ‘requirement’ boxes; now they have to deal with the extras, which includes weekend flying.
Why should we accept it?
We have to put up with their inability to do things, which is not the same as acceptance.
The contract was drawn up wrong and this happened at the beginning of the project. If someone put down Mon-Fri working and then forgot about the AEF requirement, then God help us.
I wonder if people who seem happy to make excuses are as forgiving to other “service providers” in their day to day life? If you went into a shop or other business and they said you can’t have/do this/that on particular days or times, I can’t imagine people would be OK I’ll go somewhere else and then go back.
The tardiness of the MOD/RAF depts. in this and other instances is because those in charge know we have nowhere else to go and know they can provide as poor a service as they wish and they’ll still get paid. They can make all manner of excuses and so on and have a laugh at the volunteer staff and cadets expense.
Teflon\GHE2,
Whilst some of your points make sense and I - to a point - agree with some of what you’re saying, you do seem to overlook the fact that the ACO is not the RAF’s highest priority in terms of budgets, manpower or resources.
They are also having to do more with less, just like the ACO is, as well as trying to provide what they can for us. Yes, I think some of their processes, actions and communications could be hugely improved (ACO included) but largely we have take what we can get, when we can get it. I agree it’s not ideal and I as well as many others, wish it were not so.
I certainly can’t get my head around some of the decisions being made at Cmd level but what I do know is that the halcyon days of the ‘old ATC’ are gone. You need to start understanding that.
I’m afraid I do understand that, and its why I’ve made the decision that while I’ll coast along in my semi-detached manner helping with the AT etc… activities on my sqn, I won’t be extending my service again - I’ve just got very bored of rolling my eyes when hearing about, or reading about, HQAC’s most recent negligence, laziness or stupidity.
While I understand that some of our problems are caused by a tightening defence resource envelope, stuff that with the best will in the world the ACO could never fight against, many of them are caused, or made worse, by the rank indifference and incompetence of the people being paid to steer the ACO through these troubled waters.
It’s illustrative that I cannot think of a single ‘win’ that HQAC have achieved under the current, or previous, CAC, and I can’t think of a single problem foisted upon the ACO that HQAC haven’t made worse through their inability to either think on their feet or communicate with the wider organisation.
While it’s been a long time since I would have sought to persuade anyone to join the ACO as staff, I’ve always thought I’d suggest it to my children - to my great sadness however i probably won’t bother now…
I can’t disagree with any of what you’ve said. Sadly, I can’t see it getting better anytime soon.
You can’t just magic up jobs/posts, be they full time regular, FTRS or even civilian - contract or Civil Service. In particular this was during an period of almost constant regulatory change in respect to operation with or without radar services…
I’m sorry you don’t “buy that”, but “that” is reality of military life. Anything that will involve more money - particularly recruitment of more personnel (as that means “more money” from someone’s budget on several different levels - pay, pension, benefits etc) is exceptionally difficult. You may not realise that in our current austere times, some units/business areas have moratoriums on further recruitment.
The food chain needs to be understood; it can be quite flexible. At EFTS site, EFT will almost always take priority; that said, generally the EFT units will do all they can to ensure the UAS and AEF units will have aeroplanes when they need them. AEF and UAS ops are more on an equal footing and rather depend on the priority afforded to the AEF by the UAS Commander (as the AEF is part of his unit after all).
From 2007 to 2009 we had numerous people leave through redundancy or just left and until 2013 we had no recruitment of FT personnel, unless it could be justified. Just needing an extra body wasn’t justification. We dropped a lot of business trips and attendance at symposia/conferences. So we had a revolving door of temps which was energy sapping.
BUT we couldn’t/weren’t allowed to use this a raison d’etre for any reduction in service. Of course we could have if we wanted to have a trip to the job centre.
Frankly I would make the argument that the public sector is across the board top heavy and there are many (we’ve got 7/8) people on salaries and in jobs that aren’t necessary. Cut these non roles and free the money to be used elsewhere, which are just agreed. Whenever you see cuts announced in local govt it’s always ‘frontline’ not the tea drinking, biscuit eaters who have meetings, invent processes etc as a way to justify their salaries.
It seems that provision of service is secondary or tertiary when it comes to the Air Training Corps, yet people are more than willing to use to justify their existence in jobs.
You’ve quickly become a conversation bore. Please give it a rest.
Whilst I sympathise with the specific issues at Wittering, I feel it is straying off topic. Hopefully it will be resolved so weekend flying gets back on the agenda!
That being said the severe lack of flying worries me.
Someone needs to remind the powers that be that we are not the “Part Task Training Corps”, as we aren’t allowed to call them simulators!
Thanks to everyone whose commented, sadly I am on the verge of following Tailhook and taking some time out of the ACO. Either that or trying for a transfer to another unit (or Cadet organisation all together).
Sadly I doubt the transfer option will go down well with OC Wing and the Sector Commander, guess I can always become a CI again?
After all I can continue providing the activity I am really interested in, shooting, as a CI.
Being in uniform and getting a volunteer allowance isn’t the most important thing to me.
That being said I have always wondered why someone would want to be part of a uniformed organisation and not be in uniform… Think I have my answer now!
Why worry about what anyone else thinks. It is your experience not their’s and if you feel you can get more out of your time by (If you stay) reverting to CI so be it.
I don’t care what my Wg Cdr and area WSO think of me, they don’t pay me or have any say in what happens in my day job. I’m sure they can find someone more pliable if they so desire
I remember a good few years ago, the people’s republic of Crawley decided that no aircraft at Gatwick could use their APUs after 2300. At the time I was flying BA Tristarts and a normal daytime departure was start the APU, push back and start two engines on the push. Then taxi away starting the third engine. After 2300 the procedure became start all three engines on stand using an airstart unit, then push back and depart.
The BA airstart unit at the time was a very noisy, redundant Trident APU bolted to a truck. Unfortunately the Trident APU wasn’t up to starting a RB211, so we had to use two of them making twice as much noise. For technical reasons the aircraft couldn’t pushback without an APU running with less than two main engines running (there was the possibility of a Tristar problem called “sub idle”). The two options for starting the third engine were start on stand, again using the two very noisy airstart units, or do a crossbleed start which involved stopping the aircraft and running the operating engines at high power for some time.
I estimate that we made at least twice as much noise on a night departure.
Isn’t it funny how “they” never ask the people concerned.
If you think I have moved off topic you are correct. We ought to burn something (a certain Group Captain’s desk?) so we can revere the “ashes of air cadet gliding”.