Originally Posted by
A and C
It is not a case of vigilant bashing but the facts, the aircraft is a motor glider that has been operated as a powerd aircraft because turning the engine off was prohibited by the VGS.
The result of this is that the fleet has a lot of engine hours on an engine that is no longer supported and so without a very costly engine retrofit the fleet will die.
Far better to sell the aircraft to people who can husband the engine life by using it as a true motor glider while it still has a value and pump the recovered money into other forms of air cadet flying.
This is not vigilant bashing, it's jus being pragmatic.
The engine could be turned off and was frequently done so. And let us not forget, motor gliding has been part of the air cadet organisation since 1978 and was suited to sites where conventional gliding could not take place.
Even if the engines were time expired, or getting close, then why not retrofit, or replace the aircraft entirely. It happens with other military aircraft, so why not the air cadet motor glider? Far better to have a larger glider footprint, and a mix of types that enable you to operate from a range of sites throughout the country, that a scattered handful that will not be able to meaningfully support the cadets. Gliding was the ATCs USP - what is the organisation without that?