When the RAF was large and fighting the cold war no-one wanted to know about Air Cadets (lets face it, a posting to a backwater location at Newton working with RAFRO, RAF VR(T) and kids in discarded battledress or working with Aircraft over 50 years old and second rate MT on a disused WW2 airfield is not going to further your career too much). Suddenly with no cold war to fight and a much reduced RAF, the Air Cadet Organisation was seen as somewhere you could continue your career and ultimately even engineer yourself a second one for when you retired. Lots of people took an interest in it and Government Policy suddenly swung to 'looking after the Youth' - this meant funding magically became available for the 'organisation' - very little trickled down to lower levels I can assure you.
Absolute nail on the head.
As an aside, when compared to other youth organisations, is the ATC value for money for recruiting the future RAF?
Currently, it is not value for money. More and more cadets are starting to see the RAF for what it is, crippled by red-tape and a lack of opportunity, and are deciding to forget about a RAF career and are leaving the organisation.
Lets not forget, there is currently, no flying, no shooting and no night exercises, to name a few.
