OK, at the risk of detracting attention from those who are insistent on telling us what it was like for them in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's, I have recently taken up semi-retirement (virtually total apart from a little gentle consultancy) and so have had the time to do a little digging around the media and MoD stats, most of which are totally contradictory. Looking at ASCENT's published figures, those given to various Defence Select Committees, NAO reports and other MoD official documents and stats, I think that we are throwing rocks at the wrong target!
To put my exec summary first, the problem is NOT MFTS, but the Operational Conversion Units. ASCENT, the MFTS Contractor, is delivering the required total numbers annually, even considering the fact that those numbers seem to constantly fluctuate up and down based on differing SDSR's, 2010 and 2015 being the most significant in altering numbers. The MoD has a contracted total annual output called a SUN, a Statement of User Need. This is the contracted legal required output of trained pilots at the end of each year's accounting period. This appears to be around 300 for fixed wing and 270 for Rotary Wing. MFTS IS delivering these numbers, the problem seems to be two fold; firstly that the total being graduated from MFTS cannot be absorbed by the OCU's, and secondly that the total is just that, a total, with no breakdown of ab initio, refresher or instructor. So, the problem is compounded annually by the total number graduating not being given conversion slots and then, after a considerable period holding, they are fed back into the system for a refresher, thus reducing the total available instructor and genuine trainee slots. Of that 300 fixed wing for example, the last set of figures shows 117 refresher slots, so almost half of the annual output is refreshed trainees going through for a second time. This OCU issue seems to be affecting Typhoon, Lightning, Chinook, Puma and Apache.
So, as ASCENT via MFTS is only responsible for Phase 2, that is primary through advanced training in a language I understand, NOT Phase 3, the Operational Conversion stage, which is all service provided, the problem would seem to lie with the RAF and not the contractor.
Compounding all this is, as BEagle alluded to above, is the fact that the system is designed to be as cheap as possible with absolutely no allowance for surge, training bulges or any alterations in requirements. Added to which the RAF/AAC/FAA produce an annual Flying Training Plan which is issued to the contractor and advises on the required output UP TO the SUN figure. IF, as happened this year, the requirement exceeds the SUN (323 as opposed to 300) then the contractor has no opportunity to add assets, service or civilian, in that year.
Also, as someone who went through this system in the 60's saw only too visibly, there are now none of the added assets to aid such issues as outlined above (which DID exist in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's ) such as a School of Refresher flying or seperate Central Flying School squadrons with their own aircraft at Fast Jet and Rotary stages. These do not exist because the customer didn't ask for them, not because some mealy mouthed contractor didn't think that they were necessary. Thus they are not there to be used on a regular basis to aid the increased throughput of refresher or instructor aircrew. I myself knew of a fair few of my contemporaries who, for one reason or another, spent periods of time at Manby on the two squadrons of Jet Provost T4's of the School of Refresher Flying which existed precisely because it was recognised that refreshers would put an undue strain on the output of the Flying Training School's.
And finally, is the fact that the entire RAF flying training fixed wing inventory consists of: 23 Prefect T1's, 14 Texan T1's, 28 Hawk T2's and 5 Phenom T1's, plus an unknown quantity of Tutor T1's which, from a pure flying training standpoint, seem still to equip one elementary flying training squadron and an instructor squadron. This just seems far too small.