With Tern Hill and Wethersfield being sold off, we are now looking at going from 27 sqns in 2012 to perhaps as few as 6 sqns by 2019 if no alternative sites can be found. Remember, though, as Pippa is busy assuring everyone, the squadrons will be bigger and there will be no loss in capability. I supposed when you've never been a QFI it doesn't occur to you how terrifying/impossible a circuit with 8-10 gliders on ab initio training would be.
Well, with the reduction in annual camp places, I suppose this is one way of letting cadets know what life is like in the modern RAF.
It would be nice to think that a grown-up somewhere will now recognise the value of motor gliders and that the proposed plan, as unrealistic as it was, is just absolutely Dagenham (3 stops past Barking) in the light of the closure of these sites. Sure, they're not as good a team-building tool for cadets on a day out, but they're a lot more versatile from a basing point of view and were never used to their full potential as a training tool. I don't hold out any hope for this, though. Unless some large greenfield sites can be miracled from somewhere we will be faced with huge holes in coverage not only in the "peripheries" (as they were fond of calling places like Wales, Scotland, NI and The North) but now the West Midlands/Merseyside/Greater Manchester, and Northern London/Beds/Cambs/East Anglia.