Civilians in the ACO
Apologies for the thread drift here. Last summer the ACO held it's first ever conference for CI's at RAF Cranwell. People from all parts of the UK went and, in general, seemed pleased with the event.
One of the things discussed was the fact that civilians felt they were being pressured to go into uniform when they didn't want it. At the debrief the commandant was quite adamant that that would no longer be the case.To paraphrase, she's rather have a group of happy civvies than a much smaller group on junior pilot officers etc.
The civvies outnumber the uniforms by something like five or ten to one: the unit that won the Lees Trophy (best squadron in the Corps) was run by one officer and a group of CI's. Don't undersell what the civvies contribute to the ACO as it would not/ could not function without them.
The only downside to the conference was that it took HQAC over two months to send out the minutes taken. Since then, I've seen no progress made on any of the items considered priorities, although I suppose with the fracas over the gliders etc, ID cards and ATC issue sweatshirts are a much lower priority.....
Last edited by bobward; 25th Mar 2016 at 15:33.
Reason: poooor spellin