PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Should the RAF be scrapped? (merged)
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Old 11th Aug 2010, 18:09
  #67 (permalink)  
collbar
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: gloucester
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What utter tosh!!! Ok I will bite!!
This sort of article just reinforces the fact that each service has no idea how the others work !!
Yes Logies admin and much of the management could easily combine, but specialisations many taking years of training just wouldn’t fit into an army/navy organization. Ask any of the ex army officers flying in the RAF (and there are plenty!) for their opinion on a Army officer pilot career path, after considerable training they only get a single tour productive flying!! They have a massive flat out training system barely coping. Excellent news for NCO aircrew mind!
I heartily agree the RAF could lose more than a few officers who seem to increase in number annually, with little shop floor experience or managerial skills, adding hoop after hoop for each unit to jump through. Having said all that, the idea of having ex SNCO’s and WO’s moving into junior officer posts would be a brilliant idea in the Air Force.
The army have always struggled to keep aircraft serviceable in a reasonable timescale, as they are seen as just another truck. The RAF would need twice as many Techies, Helicopters, Herks and C-17s to achieve the tasking they miraculously achieve using the same methods. The Army tried poaching RAF techies in the mid nineties. Experienced corporals found themselves as petrol pump attendants, what a waste. The reason RAF techies are signed on as long as they are is to keep their priceless maintenance and rectification experience. Civil industry keeps its experience even longer with massive productivity benefits. Even a high flying RAF techie has 9-12 years hands on experience before reaching Sgt, only find himself alongside a 22-23 yr old army equivalent who after a couple of years might find himself fixing trucks !!Modern aircraft are not lynx type tractors! Yes AH is different.(Interesting DCI knocking about for an army avionic techies retention scheme!)
The Harrier experience seems to have been painful for the RAF with a perception that they had to cover for the dark blue types. The joint helicopter and Harrier force looking from the outside seem to work...what really happens!
Tehe back in me hole!!!
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