Originally Posted by
TheSkylander
Hi everybody,
if you join the academy now where do you perform the practical part? Is up to you or to them the choice of the location of the training?
Thanks.
It's not up to you. L3 place you where they can fit you in. If you're a whitetail (Wings) cadet, it could be UAE, Portugal, NZ or (if you really draw the short straw) Bournemouth.
Originally Posted by
Lordflasheart
The RAF cadets were only due to start in August 2018, so I would suggest any ‘Bournemouth woes’ prior to August are due to some other cause.
...
It seems likely this group of students is being trained at Bournemouth on the DA42, on a hastily competed contract, necessitated by failure of the RAF to fund and procure enough crystal balls for their now civilianised flying training system (MFTS)
..
The RAF started in August and have drastically impacted the availability of instructors, especially now that there are two RAF courses running in the facility. The previous woes were down to a combination of factors; firstly, L3 switched maintenence provider which could not keep up with the workload and subsequently left L3 with 0-1x DA42s available for a period of time. The second factor is that nobody wants to be an instructor these days. The low hour requirements that allow cadets to get jobs with airlines is killing the instructor game across Europe and is affecting all of the 'big' integrated schools. Unfortunately, L3 keep taking on further contracts (such as the MOD) for what I can only imagine are marketing/prestige reasons and are subsequently having to use contractors/external schools just to handle the workload.
It's a mess.