I’ve interacted with the ACF leadership (about CCF) and they also have a ban in place other than for some limited activity. So I’m not sure what’s going on there. Not my issue really but I can see the perceived frustration.
I am aware there are frustrations with RAFAC HQ but this project is entirely owned by 2FTS and HQ has been supporting us well, where needed.
I can’t comment on other projects or the speed of these. However, I can assure you that this project hasn’t been delayed unnecessarily. Securing money to do this properly and only once has been hugely challenging, but we are there now, and steaming full speed ahead.
Honestly. I haven’t seen that. As you probably realise, I’m very close to the project and my background is in a dynamic corporate environment where progress and decisions are measured in minutes and hours, rather than weeks or months. However, nothing could be progressed without funding and that has been the biggest challenge. It’s now resolved, very recently, and the progress now is swift.
I would be the first to get frustrated with a lack of progress and I’m not there by a long way…yet.
An update is coming soon and hopefully it’ll explain why we are taking a bit longer than many would like, but why that’s necessary and in all our interests.
I know you’ve said it’s been resolved very recently but:
to save money staff vacancies are being gapped leading to strain across the organisation
the CACE process around camps shows that we are counting pennies at every stage
there is a defence over spend leading to reduced availability of funds
we are now in an election period so spending announcements get tied up with purdah
we are likely to have a change in government which is likely to have an impact on defence & an accelerated SDSR pausing new spending.
a new commandant is due in September who may have a different vision on the direction to take.
If your funding source is public funds then it may not be forthcoming.
If it is a reduction in other cadet activities e.g. Shooting then sorry but I would prefer to keep what we have & shelve the drone project rather than develop anything extra in the current climate.
I’ve no idea what’s gone on before…I can only judge and tell you what I’ve seen thus far and that’s all been focussed on delivering.
I do think that the direct link to the RAF and its culture and archaic practices do stifle innovation and creativity though.
I’m also astonished at how little influence or voice the volunteers have in the organisation. This I believe it part of the problem. But that’s a topic for another day.
It’s the inside the fence, jump when I say so, and the real world outside the fence of, inform me why I need to jump mentality?
A percentage of that number inside the fence don’t actually get that CFAVs are civilians, not bound by KRs and a legal backing to their orders when they are given or shouted.
Last year, when I had my chinwag with AOC22 Gp, RAFAC Cmdt, & OC 2FTS, OC 2FTs said words to the effect that the drones requirement would be predominately as per CAA guidelines with a “light touch” relating to RAFAC requirements.
I think that may have been MAA light touch. We are a registered CAA operator and are governed by the CAA rules with light touch RAF. Thst remains correct.
Security is MoD and some units must be kept in small faraday bags if stored on MoD estate, not volunteer estate. This is an MoD wide policy, not ours. But we’ll likely avoid this need in the majority of cases by buying alternative units.
Don’t make stuff up or embellish it. It causes unnecessary rumours and angst where it’s not needed.nobody has ever mentioned faraday cages, ever.
I’m not making anything up. You’ve just said your self above about the use of faraday bags… Trying to tell me that I’m making stuff up because I said faraday cage instead of bag is just semantics. You knew what I meant. I was referring back to the IBN in December, which stated the same.
My point is you can’t say our policy will only have a “light touch” of rules from the RAF when it’s looking like anything we want to use, or have centrally funded, will need to be a specifically approved ‘type B’ RPAS.
If we were just sticking to the rules that the CAA give, this process wouldn’t have taken multiple years. I know that isn’t viable for us, but you can’t claim “We are a registered CAA operator and are governed by the CAA rules with light touch RAF.”, when really, the RAF/MoD rules will be dictating a lot of what we do.
I’ve said this many times before, you’re conflating two issues here.
Drone operations and flying will be entirely CAA with some background regulatory processes being MAA, but nothing that will impact on drone ops. We will be operating up to the Specific Category and have a CAA Operational Approval to do this.
The security issue that determines the type of drone we can use has nothing to do with drone operations. These are MoD policies that we must follow, but we have an exemption for volunteer estate.
In reality the security restrictions will only impact a small number of units and each region will be provided with a high value DE approved drone. Several volunteer estate models and dozens of indoor drones. The goal has been to made this as accessible as possible to everyone.
An approved list will be published shortly for those units who may wish to buy their own. For many reasons, which will be outlined in official comms, we just cannot buy any model and fly it. Regulatory issue, not security in this case.
It’s not semantics, words matter, and there’s a big difference between a bag you can buy on Amazon for a few pounds and a faraday cage. Which I’m sure you knew.
It’s a pity drones cannot be under the radio lead rather than 2FTS. The restrictions on radios, frequencies approved types & regulation by OFCOM are established & accepted.
It would be a good parallel & help the volunteers buy into the mindset.
You could even do a similar model of sqns being granted a drone operating certificate from RAFAC similar to the radio authorisation.
Are you surprised.
Never forget that their combined avaition knowledge (even waaay up with the viking and tutir gods ) is derisable. They know very little civ policy it would seem.
