Originally Posted by
Bob Viking
Please don’t take this as a continuation of previous spats between us but you need to be able to quantify your statements.
Out of all the types you mentioned above, you are unable to state for certain what hours their pilots are getting on a monthly basis. You are just guessing based on hearsay or vague information.
I’m in the RAF and I have no idea what monthly hours pilots are getting outside of my own unit. Can you be so sure that GR4 and Typhoon pilots are getting so few hours? Or are you basing your supposition on old information? Genuinely, I have no idea but I wouldn’t guess and then pretend on here that it’s a fact.
As for QFI training times, are you absolutely certain your information is bang up to date?
I am sure you have read
As I said, I’m not trying to start a fight and I obviously have no idea who you are. You could be AOC 22 Gp for all I know. Just please, stick to known facts to reinforce your point. It will help your credibility.
BV
Bob, I don't want a fight with you, I just want everyone to know the truth.
I am of course long since departed for civvy street. You don't know who I am, but I know who you are. That's not really relevant.
You are still serving, and you are very close to the action, particularly regarding the T2. So consider this; anything that you can say, about the T2 fleet and the flow of students, should be taken as either absolute truth or malicious lies, intended to deceive. That's based on the premise that you would know, wouldn't you?
So, if you can tell us on here about what happens in the T2 fleet, why do think that I don't know people on the other fleets who can tell me the same thing?
How many hours a month have you flown in the last year?
The next time you speak to a Typhoon Pilot, ask him the same question. Ask any of the Reds how many hours a month they averaged last year. Ask any of Beagle's vintage how many hours a month they used to do, and whether or not they think they would be as comfortable doing the current hours. I an sure that you will have read
National Audit Office report on Military Flying Training 2015 which, although three years old, tells a sorry tale of seven years from joining the RAF to getting combat ready. I'm not say that the report is pleasant, I'm not even saying it's accurate, as much like some AAIB stuff I have been reading recently, the (lack of) attention to detail is shocking, and the numbers don't always add up.
Even so, despite all of the promises and money that has been committed to the new world order in training, the RAF are certainly no better off. The flying hours have been cut for the students, the duration of training has been cut and people are arriving at the OCU without the same level of experience that they used to have. Most shocking in that for me, was that the Audit discovered that the failings and lack of experience, was not a culture that was being recorded or fed back.
Here we are 11 years after the contract was awarded, and even you couldn't honestly say that it has gone well.
Three years since that report came out, a rethink of how the business would manage to turn things around, a collection of new plans and timetables.. here we are, still short of bodies and a backlog in the holding system.
I recall a time when the output from the OCU was the best of the people who had applied. Nowadays it looks like it might just be those who have had the patience to stick around long enough.