Royal Navy Flying Grading

[stude101]

Can someone please tell me what Royal Navy flying grading consists of? I know it lasts for 13 hours culminating in a final handling test but I cant find out the content of the 13 hours.

Kind Regards

Stude

[airborne_artist]

The grading course will be the standard first dozen lessons - so:

1. Familiarisation, 2. Effects of controls, 3. Straight and level, 4. Climbing and descending, 5. Turns, 6. Stalling and spinning, 7/8. Gen handling, 9/onwards. Circuits. Final sortie will be a handling test.

I'm not sure if gradees get the chance to solo - I expect they still do, if so it will be the last sortie before the test.

Top tip - learn all your checks as soon as possible making max use of the mock-up/hangar queen, working in pairs is good for this.

[oojamaflip]

airborne_artist is right in the main. You will learn a couple of basic aeros as well and the final check is along the lines of depart, climb for spins, aeros, stalls package, steep turns, rejoin, ccts.

There were no PFLs or nav, although you need to be able to point out where the airfield is when asked. You definitely won't go solo, as the built up area around Roborough means you'd have to be taught turn backs, and there isn't a need for that.

Good luck.

[airborne_artist]

Oojamaflip - I went solo from Roborough, in a Chipmunk, on Nov 20 1978. Grading is now/will very soon be at VL, so I'd guess the solo opportunity may exist.

[cobaltfrog]

No solo, no need!

[oojamaflip]

Not saying you didn't. I am saying that in 1978 alot of the housing estates around Roborough weren't there and PFLs were an option. First solos haven't happened for at least the last 15 years.

I can't speak for what will happen at Yeovilton, but I suspect that as grading solos aren't a requirement, a busy airfield like Yeovilton would not be the place for them.

[wobble2plank]

What busy airfield?? Give the bean counters another year and the only thing on the runway will be the tumbleweeds.

Grading t'will be fun at VL, plenty of room to land after a f##k up.:eek:

P.S. Solo's were still happening in my time on the venerable chippie :p

[Toddington Ted]

:) Oooh yes, its all coming back to me now, my first Chippie solo was at Roborough in the good company of AA around the end of Nov 78 (must look out the old logbook) the next type was the mighty Bulldog at Leeming in 1979 after which Service common sense prevailed (I was chopped!) and I now watch them doing the flying from the comfort of my 1960s office at the RAF's Alma Mater. Stude101, enjoy yourself and take the good advice offered from this forum.

[vecvechookattack]

What busy airfield?? Give the bean counters another year and the only thing on the runway will be the tumbleweeds


Gawd, I wish. I was led to understand that once the Stovies buggered off then VL would become quieter...Not a chance...busier and busier and busier...more aircraft, more tasking, more flying...


....still at least the whining has stopped

[wobble2plank]

Wait till they try to find the funding for that new three pronged missiliy submarine sun dodging type thingimajig. Watch the annual flying rate plummet and the cost of the stovie friendly concrete runway spiral and it will all come to a head.:E

Grading would still be fun to do down there though, few pints in the hanging gardens afterwards!!!

Stude101, have fun, I might see you there as a mate of mine is a part time instructor down there and has offered to make me sick again. (Not sure if it's the flying or the hanging gardens????? Lifes full of surprises)

Has the whining stopped 'cause all the pilots are in Norfolk somewhere now?:D

[airborne_artist]

TodTed - I think we must arrange a 86/87 course p!ss-up sometime soon, before we all shuffle off the mortal coil. I have access to a superb club house at Bisley, with overnight accom.

It's 28 years since grading - ouch.

[22N114E]

Flying Grading is designed to be a filter. Your final assessment is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your ability to learn. They are not looking for you to star.

I cannot comment on whether an opportunity to solo will present itself, but in my day it was not uncommon. Don Pugh authorised my first solo in WK634 on October 2, 1976. Earlier that day, the late Norman Lees went solo too.

Enjoy the process and your career. It certainly has been good to me.

[wobble2plank]

I had Charles Manning as my mentor, and ,after studiously listening during the prop swing lecture, I stamped on the wrong rudder during my first take off and fell off the runway. MORTIFIED :eek:

All I got was a thunk on the helmet and a 'lets have another go shall we'

Thank god for great instructors!!!!

[Ox cidental]

Strewth,

All the chat about Chippies at Roborough brings back the memories....if stude 101 is still having a gander at the replies, then I can recommend everything said so far. Grading is yet another filter of the training system, and looks to assess your ability to learn - ie your memory for checks, copying what an instructor shows you, and then 'playing it back' during later flights.

I went through Roborough in Jan/Feb 1990, and had Mr Coward as my primary, with the odd trip with Messers Summerfield and Sheppard (he of smashed Hawk nose fame). FHT was with Jack Frost :\

Solo's were not a requirement, studes who flew solo usually had prior hours or were guns, but they were dependant on aircraft availability.

Definately get with a stick buddy and learn the checks....the less you have to actively remember in the cockpit, makes learning new stuff with the beefer a great deal easier.

Anyone who's flown the chippy can tell you what My Friend Flicka Has Hairy Balls means.....

[6Z3]

I enjoyed Roborough twice. On the first occasion I overheard Stan Greenhaugh (sp?) saying to his new stude: "I'll teach you to fly in 20 mins....". About two months later he started his speal to his latest new stude with: "I'll teach you to fly in 25 mins". I'm sure it was only 20 mins last time said I; yes I must be slipping in my old age said he. Mr Hawkins sent me solo; I'm fairly sure it was because he was just too knackered to heave on the parachute so late in the afternoon, even after I carried it to the aircraft for him!!. Oh happy days.
They've just moved to Yeovilton I hear, so the end of a very long and distinguished era for the Graders at Roborough.
Advice: Demonstrate for all your trips that you learnt from the previous trip(s). Checks are so easy to get right, it just takes a bit of time in the hangar with an oppo, don't let the opportunity be wasted because you couldn't be bothered to learnt them off pat. Same applies to later aircraft. Learning checks is money for old rope, as is properly studying the local area map so that you know where you are in the local area. Both exercises will help to free up the brain capacity for stuff you need to learn from you beefer in the air.

[AllTrimDoubt]

RNFG now part of 727 NAS. Squadron arrived at Yeovilton 12 Dec 2006 and will begin flying operations in Jan 2007 with the first grading course beginning shortly thereafter. Flown on the Grob 115E, 13:00 hrs total, no solo.

OK?

[gpugh]

Hi very interested to find this forum discussion, my father Don Pugh was with Britannia Flight 1964 -1990 he is still well and very fit now aged 85, I was at Dartmouth in 1976 but didn't make the grade , I think it was 77 flight, I used to be the "hanger rat" pushing, pulling chipmunks for all I was worth lol happy days

my email should anyone want it [email protected]

[airborne_artist]

GP - didn't your dad "star" in an RAF-made training film about escape and evasion. He'd have been a young man at the time, but I remember seeing it at Seafield Park, and we all giggled when we saw him.

His colleagues in 1978 included Messrs. Maule, Firmin and Legat ( the latter may have been CFI, as I did my FHT with him).

[BEagle]

I remember seeing a clip on Westward TV about the retirement of the last Tiger Moths from Roborough - it must have been mid-1966 or thereabouts?

I think there were still some Tigers at Lee in the early 1970s?

[gpugh]

Hi , I will ask him about the film though he will probably deny it anyway, the Tiger Moths did go in about 65/66 and legat was the CFI in 78 and father by then had left the Navy and was deputy CFI having been the flying grading examiner there as his last posting

[flown-it]

Summer 1962. Glorious weather. Roborough still all grass. Never been near an aeroplane. Tiger Moths looking to this country boy significantly less sturdy than ones combine harvester! Lesson 3 spins. But sir I don't like heights. Sir with leather helmet, Snoopy goggles and a Biggles flowing green and white scarf suitably unimpressed. Swerve to avoid double decker bus as we crossed the road on the final approach and dip right wing into tall grass. Sir, unfazed recovers and on landing points out evidence of our close encounter. Happy days!! And after 47 years and several years airborne ( and still doing it)... I still don't like heights!

[gpugh]

Hi sounds wonderful, the CFI at that time I think was called Lucas EX RAF with a big handle bar moustache, the tigers were still there when we moved to Plymouth but were being replaced by the Chipmunks so there a mixture, I do have a photo of one of the Tigers


Gordon

[Pontius]

Wow, there's a few crusty old buggers around this thread :) I didn't do my grading until Feb 1985, so that makes me a young slip of a thing. After scaring Messrs Clutton, Godfrey and Brown, I was allowed to take myself aloft in the venerable Chippy (WB671). Went to fly them later as an AEF pilot and glider tugging, so came to know then quite well and love getting it 'right' in a machine more challenging than the average spam can. Also flew the Bulldog and Grob in the AEF roles but nothing came close to the De Havilland machine :ok: