Air Cadets grounded?

[Arclite01]

Cats Five

That is also a valid point - a re-equipment plan though, means larger numbers in the military world and they place an order and want it as soon as possible, a trickle feed is not ideal for them. And based on 24 a year = 2 per month for an average the re-equipment programme takes approx 5 years for 100 aircraft.

This means on a leaseback the oldest ones would just be getting replaced as the last new ones arrive. All OK once you are into a cycle of continuous rolling replacement but bad news if you are the back of the queue first time round.

Additionally the real issue is Schleicher only build about 30 a year (since they have other models in production and only limited factory floor space) so you would be lucky to get 10 of those so the refresh would take 10 years and not 5. I am assuming that Scheicher have done this for years and are happily profitable and efficient to the levels they are pleased with.

Finally, the upside is that the K21 has just been lifed to 18000 hours so at current average use rates they would last until the end of this century at least !! (if we were crazy and wanted to buy them to keep ad infinitum).

The powers that be need to realise that they are not in a flooded market and are not ordering or operating A400M or C-130J, but a simple sailplane with a potential simple procurement lifecycle. The Motorglider replacement programme could also follow a similar profile but with a slightly higher hours profile.

The Canadian Air Cadets appear to operate on CF plates - why not put ours on G plates ? - bring them under EASA and off we go..............

I believe that there may be slightly more of a political issue now though as I often see Vikings and Vigilants included in overall RAF Aircraft numbers - is this part of the game to make the RAF look larger on paper than it really is ??

Arc

Another thought. Why bother with the winch launch fleet at all. There are less and less stations willing to accept a Winch Operation (FOD risk, cables etc). Why not just standardise on one type (Motorglider) and put them out on detachments to local airfields for weekends so that units don't have to travel too far for BGT and AEG ??