Baffman - they raised the issue of being in pain and the DS sent them to see the medics to get checked out (so there is clearly an expressed concern for recruit welfare amongst the DS) and it was the medics who then said "you'll be fine keep going".
Having been to Halton almost all training prior to Force Protection takes place on the upper section of the site, the area occupied exclusively by RTS, so not huge amounts of Marching between locations as the barrack blocks are almost directly next door to the classrooms and both border the parade square with the recruits cookhouse on one of the sides of the square. Having been to Halton and had to march around it everywhere the main camp is not that big in terms of marching distances.
30 inches has been the length of RAF marching pace for years and years (probably since before WWII) no-one has previously raised this so why is it only now becoming an issue?
For female recruits and those struggling with PT and fitness they have a Halton Pre-Foundation course in which they give you extra training to help with fitness and medical standards and during which they make it VERY clear what it will be like for the 9 week phase one training, reasonable adjustments will be made for recruits who require them and the fitness test is also broken down into age and gender categories with female candidates having a lower fitness requirement than males and the older candidates having a lower fitness standards than younger recruits - that says to me that the RAF and MoD recognise the differences between recruits and put in adjustments to help them manage and that it is not an endemic problem of unneccesarily forcing people to do what they are not capable of doing - so why is drill only now being raised as an issue?
Of the hundreds of thousands of recruits (probably millions since the RAFs inception) that have passed through RTS why have there only been these 3 cases. Thats a very, very low percentage of the total even if you include the 5 other cases that the BBC say they are aware of that the RAF/MoD are going to take to the courts to defend.
For those interested this is the RAF Halton RTS training schedule taken from the RAF website
