i don't suppose any of you have recently walked into the 16 Sqn students crewroom at Rauceby Lane? Or spent a night in Daedalus Mess at Cranwell. If you had you might have been suprised...
16 (R) caters for 1/3 of the RAF EFT students (many of whom come out of the UAS, but that is neither here nor there). To that end it is a constantly busy squadron and is often pressed by time and resources to finish EFT courses on time. It is slightly curious, then, that if you were to walk into the crewroom that houses usually 20 but up to 30 RAF students at one time, you could very easily mistake it for the East Midlands UAS crewroom. They share, but the amount of space there and in the mess that the UAS seem to occupy is odd, considering how pressed the RAF is. And they aren't just sitting around drinking (though do occasionally wake up those of us with jobs to do on return from the bar)... they benefit from an enormous amount of flying - contrary to some of the earlier suggestions. I've never been airborne in the area without hearing a UAS callsign - and perhaps the biggest question we should be asking is: "can we justify it??"
Yes the UAS is a huge recruiter... and yes the ex-UAS students tend to cope with EFT very well... but is that fair? Fair on the guys who may dip out - the guys for whom the squadron and aircraft are really there. And is it fair on those without the flying experience? RAF EFT is competitive, there is no question of that... is the UAS a strictly necessary headstart or does it possibly allow students to perform better than they otherwise would, thereby taking up one of those precious linton spaces?
I'm only questioning!
MW