Whilst it pains me to find myself in agreement with Beagle in not one but two current posts, He’s absolutely correct. The UAS system has been ruined for nil gain in an effort to appear value for money. Any potential undergraduate should think long and hard about joining a UAS. He or she will have to contend with completing their EFT, a degree course and these days probably having to work in a part time job to keep them off the streets. When they then go to OASC with a glowing UAS report, reflecting their excellent aptitude as a pilot they will then face the chance of being turned away for lacking ‘breadth of interest’ and having poor results in a computer based aptitude test.
If they join after Uni they can concentrate on completing their EFT without any of the distractions which a UAS student has to contend with. After all we need people who can see the easy route to success.
Mr C Hinecap – well your reference to a flying and drinking club show you to be an open-minded individual. However by way of anecdotal evidence of the effectiveness of the old UAS system:
Fourteen of us leapfrogged our way down to the recruiting office and into the RAF in my year. This was at a time when airlines were desperately trying too recruit direct entry pilots.
My BFT course of twelve were all ex UAS - all but one now wear wings, the majority of them fast jet pilots. We did have a direct entrant who joined us after failing his first groundschool but he didn’t solo despite his OASC aptitude scores.
OK so these are anecdotal but the stats at the time showed that the volunteer reserve members' success rate in reaching a fast jet cockpit was something like 33% compared to something in the low teens for direct entrants. The meagre cost of running the UASs for the year was easily recouped in the money saved in later training.
The bottom line is that I wouldn’t join a UAS now (as if they’d have me!) but the old system was worth keeping.
‘Better by far for Jonnie bright star to ditch the UAS and join the Theatre Club.’