Originally Posted by
Jimmyjerez
Much is talked about of on Vikkings that cadets do loads all day but exactly what are cadets who visit for a days flying allowed to do? Nothing to do with the winch I suppose. Hat training do they get?
Wingtip orderly for launches and towing, attaching the cables, pushing and pulling under the supervision of sqn staff and Flight Staff Cadets.
Oh yes, FSCs are disappearing too. The Brain Trust has decided that they're to join ATC SNCO ranks, along with CGIs, once they turn 18. What exactly happens when 16.5yr olds complete AGT remains to be seen because, like so much else, this plan seems to have been written on the back of a cocktail napkin after a couple too many sherbets. Do they get sent away for 18 months for them only to find something else to do? What's supposed to happen to guys and girls, who are usually the amongst best and the brightest, when they are given the either/or choice of continuing gliding to the total exclusion of anything else they might want to accomplish in the Corps?
I was a FSC once upon a time. I was flying other cadets when I was 18. A couple of my squadron-mates were doing it at 17 and all of us were treated like, and (in and around the aeroplane at least) acted like, grown-ups. We received exactly the same training and flew to the same standard as CGIs, ATC WOs and commissioned officers. The same year I qualified I also got a flying scholarship and I went on the International Air Cadet Exchange. That was a quarter or a century ago and at least one of my mates was cutting about in the front seat of a Phantom- he was only about a year older than me.
These days, the Cadets have far more serious courses for serious people, such as Basic Expedition Leader and the Junior Leaders Course, from which they can gain formal and recognised qualifications and RCO courses where you have to be 18 to qualify. If the RAF is serious about using the ACO as an incubator for its future officers and aircrew, then establishing arbitrary barriers is very much a retrograde step.