Originally Posted by
Onceapilot
EnigmAviation
I support your opinion of the situation. Certainly, Commandant Air Cadets has been in that post since Aug 2012. In 2017 she has somehow been awarded CBE for her efforts and, incredibly, been retained in post until 2020. Surely, heads somewhere should roll or, is no-one responsible?
OAP
i don't think she has been responsible directly, only assisting in the burying of the bodies metaphorically speaking in terms of issuing glowing reports of how well the non- flying was going, and how marvellous the enhanced video games were going called Part Task Trainers. There must be accountability on the part of the RAF as they were THE service responsible in EVERY sense for the airworthiness, maintenance and repair if the entire Grob fleet, and continued to be so, in overall management terms, even after a Third Party contractors came into the tasking after 2006. This whole scandal , when the pause was initiated in early 2014 clearly went up through the chain of command from OC FTS, to OC 22 Group, and ultimately to Chief of the Air Staff.
From what has been muttered in many circles, some "horse trading" has been done, but without ANY Defence Select Committee involvement or questions, and without ANY VSO having been called to account to the Taxpayer, or any MP.
Here we are, in a so called democracy, where we are denied,( thus far ! But hopefully not much longer if I can help it ) the chance to find out who failed in their duty, and what sanctions are to be implemented, and to make any recoveries possible in financial loss terms, and finally to ratify, or indeed cancel any contracts, implied or otherwise, that may exist for the disposal of the large number of airframes remaining outstanding post "recovery" .
Not only that, we, the former very competent , able Instructors and the parents of our former students, need to be informed, whether we were unknowingly acting in captaincy terms, completely blind to the risk that our aircraft were, as implied by the 3.5 yr "pause" , unserviceable and unfit for purpose. They can't have it both ways, either they were truly unfit to be flown, thus legitimising the grounding, or they were not, and the 3.5 year grounding, recovery and huge reduction in VGS capacity, reduction in staffing and potential disposal of serviceable airframes is a complete sham. We need to be officially told which is the true version.
It is extremely worthy of mention that not one VRT Officer bore any responsibility in this sad saga, the amateurs were the professionals, and vice versa.