Originally Posted by
Tashengurt
With the eldest boy wanting to give Air cadets a go we took a walk down to our local squadron a few nights ago.
During a chat with the OC they confirmed that gliding is essentially off the menu but powered flight is still fairly frequent.
They then mentioned that shooting was seriously curtailed after "an incident" down south led to all weapons being recalled to central armouries.
Anyone know what's going on there?
It seems that a drill rifle went walkabout from a Squadron and due to case's (not ATC) of deactivated sometimes getting reactivated there was a big knee jerk, or should I say another knee jerk. All part of the great 'do nothing' syndrome so we are fireproof. As we have seen from the great Non Gliding scenario once you go down this route it is very difficult to reverse the situation. I think the 'fairly frequent flying' may also be a bit optimistic.
As someone who benefitted from the golden days of the Cadets it saddens me to see how we have reduced its aviation, and large bore shooting element, and I shudder at the thought of us being asked to fill shopping bags at a supermarket.
We have seen what happened when the Gliders paperwork was suspect (it has effectively killed off the system as we knew it) I can not imagine 'upgrading' rifle storage will be a happy experience. Of course there will be an opening for a 'virtual range', and as with the PTT that will become the norm.