Originally Posted by
BEagle
So if 6 pilots per annum are going to be trained on the Hawk T1 at Leeming, how/where will they do their weaponeering? Of course it was different when 4FTS was an AFS and all weaponeering was taught at TWU, but ever since the shotgun wedding of 'mirror image' and the ending of traditional TWUs, things are less clear. Particularly since all Valley weaponeering is now merely synthetic in nature.
Are these lucky 6 going to do some fast jet AFS at Leeming on the Hawk T1, then convert to the T2 to meet OCU entry requirements or will there be sufficient exponents of triggernometry to include a weapons phase at Leeming?
'tis indeed a crock - as those with any experience predicted it would be.
And how goes ME pilot training on the Phenom, assuming that there haven't been any more mid-air collisions?
I see MFTS is still trying to recruit BFTS instructors for Valley. What a surprise....
I reckon that it is just going to be, what used to be called, a "Fast Jet Lead In" course, with Donna Nook or Holbeach for Air to Surface firing and lots of free upper air with Linton closing.
The boys and girls who win the prize of doing this training will be taught be real RAF Fighter Pilots, not pensioners or civvy pilots from a time gone by.
Real, serving, blue suited, current people, with intimate knowledge of what the front line wants, without commercial pressures and more importantly, without the civvy PFI contract to provide a way to hide behind and weasel out of missed (not AWR) targets.
I saw a documentary last week, on the Paras, where the staff pointed out that they chop people on the basis that if they allow a poor or borderline student to pass, they might have to depend on that person in a real fight in a few months time. Their friends on the front line might have to depend on that person much sooner.
How can the instructors look their mates (or bereaved family) in the eye, if a poor quality candidate is allowed to go to battle and subsequently lets the side down?
I think that the same can be said for the current fad of civilian or FTRS(LC) aircrew teaching at 4FTS. Those guys are not going to war with a former student on their wing.
The RAF have a choice here, teach what the students need to know, or have them taught what the lawyers and beancounters agreed that MoD would pay for. Not even close to the same thing.