Excess Aircrew

[JliderPilot]

While we wait for manning to sort through SDSR how many Aircrew are we going to lose? I am lucky enough to have already passed my pension point so have something to fall back on; but I would like to know sooner rather than later where I stand.

Oi Manning; get the finger out and let us know.

[Mr C Hinecap]

Then you'd be howling about how there had been no due diligence and 'how could they rush such a decision' and 'don't they know these are people's lives'.

[Pontius Navigator]

If you are over 50 you should know where you stand. If your aircraft is out of service or going then no more OCUs. If you are over 45 then you are not standing on a rock either. 38-44, what skills do you have? Are you Well Above Average or a GSS?

[spectre150]

Oi Manning; get the finger out and let us know :ugh:

[Sideshow Bob]

PN,

You forgot, are you on a pensionable engagement? If not worry.

[orgASMic]

I am not sure if I would be too concerned if I were aircrew. The two-winged master race will look after its own and the Flight Ops specialisation (which only came into being to release aircrew back into the front line) will, IMHO, get the elbow. You will not be getting any more flying but you will be in a job.

[Pontius Navigator]

I am not sure if I would be too concerned if I were aircrew. The two-winged master race will look after its own and the Flight Ops specialisation (which only came into being to release aircrew back into the front line) will, IMHO, get the elbow. You will not be getting any more flying but you will be in a job.

I am not in the picture about the FOS but I suspect you are being over optimistic. If all billets are filled where would you slot aircrew in?

Making less expensive FO redundant might be a less expensive option as many will not have earned a pension although the initial retreads will have done so.

Putting highly paid aircrew in to the posts would I guess be more expensive though you could close down the Flt Ops training except it may have become a self-licking lollipop.

If trained and qualified FO were replaced by aircrew (without flying pay) I think there would be the mother of all stinks desirable as it may be seen in many quarters.

The MOD is not an employment agency and is not going to retain personnel on a just-in-case basis when the aim of the game is to lose 5000 RAF personnel. It has no track record of retaining skill and experience when it is not needed and the cost arguement doesn't wash either as it doesn't with past infrastructure spend. :)

[Ken Scott]

My understanding is, for what it's worth, that Manning have established that they will be short of trained aircrew in the medium term once airlines start recruiting non-type rated pilots, so there is not much likelyhood of any widespread redundancies. There may well be some targeted at particular individuals, presumeably the older generation with little time to serve?

The trick will be finding something worthwhile for people to do in the interval. At Wiltshire's secret airbase we're reducing crews but looking to retain everyone for the future, so lots of OOA & COS jobs to be filled?

[Pontius Navigator]

will be short of trained aircrew in the medium term

Short of role-trained aircrew is more likely.

If you are in a role that has potential to absorb more aircrew then you will be in a different situation from those whose roll had gone.

4-jet maritime will be needed less than single-engine FJ I would guess.

[Ken Scott]

Short of role-trained aircrew is more likely.



4-jet maritime will be needed less than single-engine FJ I would guess.

FJ fleets are in long-term decline, there will only be so many QFI slots to fill under MFTS, so the only growth areas in the future will be ME (A400, KC30) & RW.

We have a number of ex-Kipper fleet pilots at the Secret Airbase, already experienced ME operators, just an OCU was required to teach them to fly a truck. It's a much bigger deal to turn a single-engine FJ 'sky god' into a ME pilot, so I don't agree with your last point.

[Pontius Navigator]

Ken, I agree about the FJ although the driver who took me to Cyprus for my overseas tour was an ex-Lightning mate who had converted to Brits.

No, my premise was not the maritime could not convert to AT but the possibility that AT was also either in decline or static as well. What about the K-drivers and 10-drivers? The latter could do the tanker and the former the A400. Of course if the UE increases to improve utilisation then that would be different.

[VinRouge]

I imagine most of them are getting their CVs and licenses sorted to go along with the v fingers in the rear view mirror as they move to the civil sector in about 18 months time.

[Abbey Road]

I have heard from within BA that the company is actively looking at opening their recruiting to non-type rated military pilots. If that includes giving preference to military pilots who were formerly in the hold-pool, I don't know. I would hope so.

[vecvechookattack]

am not in the picture about the FOS but I suspect you are being over optimistic. If all billets are filled where would you slot aircrew in?

Making less expensive FO redundant might be a less expensive option as many will not have earned a pension although the initial retreads will have done so.

Putting highly paid aircrew in to the posts would I guess be more expensive though you could close down the Flt Ops training except it may have become a self-licking lollipop.

If trained and qualified FO were replaced by aircrew (without flying pay) I think there would be the mother of all stinks desirable as it may be seen in many quarters.

The MOD is not an employment agency and is not going to retain personnel on a just-in-case basis when the aim of the game is to lose 5000 RAF personnel. It has no track record of retaining skill and experience when it is not needed and the cost arguement doesn't wash either as it doesn't with past infrastructure spend.

I think he was talking about getting rid of Flight ops completely....not sacking the Flight Ops people and then putting aircrew into those jobs... Just get rid of the Flight Ops branch.... i.e get rid of the job...not the people

[Pontius Navigator]

Vec, feasible but not really practicable I would have thought. Flt Ops replaced aircrew. Get rid of Flt Ops and you have a hole. Put aircrew in as ops officers and it will cost more.

On balance perhaps more aircrew ops officers were non-pilots. The number of available non-pilots will reduce in the near term even.

No cheap answer.

[orgASMic]

My suspicion is that pilots of now-defunct fleets will be recycled onto other fleets and that the spare WSOs/WSOps will be filtered into ops jobs vice Flt Ops personnel. The Flt Ops lot appear to be on a very sticky wicket at the moment and could disappear as quickly as they were created if they are not careful.

Yes, financially, it is a tricky circle to square but, taking the long view, one could argue that a WSO with 10 years to push is worth keeping on in place of a Flt Ops officer who has already qualified for his pension.

I am sure, when the redundancy details are published, we will see that any short-timers will be first to go on the basis that they will get a smaller redundancy payment and they were going to get their pension/gratuity soon anyway.

Ultimately, only the individual can decide if it is the right thing to stay in and cross fingers or to take the money and chance it on the outside. IMHO the spare aircrew may get a better deal out of it than the rest of us. The RAF is not paying me to get my civil Qs as an incentive to stay in for a few more years.

[Mahogany_Bomber]

I'm an OpsO and the future of my branch has been perpetually under consideration since it's creation. Issues of how well the job is or isn't being done, can it be done better by aircrew/ATC/ABM/the cleaner etc etc, will I think be made irrelevant by the over-riding concern of cost. All the while that ground branch officers are the cheapest option then I don't anticipate that aircrew will have a look in (other than perhaps the odd specialist position) but when you are building a carrier that will never operate FW aircraft anything is possible. Having been commissioned as an OpsO I don't have another specialisation to fall back on should we go the way of Sim Techs but I am in the fortunate position of already being pensionable. Whilst I'm not keen to leave it wouldn't be as galling as it will be for those who haven't yet reached their 38/16 point.

MB

[JliderPilot]

The cynical part of me thinks manning will delay any redundancy until after the Apr 2013 change of conditions.

[heights good]

What exactly are the change in conditions?

[Party Animal]

JP,

I hear rumours that CAS is trying to push for all 3 tranches of redundancy to take place before 31 Mar 13 with a bit of flexibility built in to allow it to happen. Good for all of us if this is a) true and b) it actually happens. My cynical side sadly concurs with your thoughts though.

hg,

Those on AFPS 75 who leave either voluntarily or compulsory before 31 Mar 13 will receive 9 months tax free pay. Leave on 1 Apr 13 or after and it drops to 3 months tax free pay. This probably means that those who left in the mid 90's probably got a much bigger payout than someone who will leave in 2015...

But remember it's all about our people who always come first!!! B0LL0**s

[JliderPilot]

Well done, you beat me to it I was trying to find that quote.

I have heard that exact quote from CAS himself recently so hopefully it will happen, although the bean counters might overrule him.

[Could be the last?]

I assume that is tax free basic pay?

[Pontius Navigator]

orgasmic, the Service's manning may be considered as a pyramid.

What you are proposing is to remove a slice - flt ops - and post aircrew in to those jobs. I just feel that solution is illogical. Why take productive personnel and make them redundant and take redundant aircrew and put them in flt ops jobs?

[Grabbers]

To improve Operational Effectiveness?

[Pontius Navigator]

Grabbers, logical. However give me an example of the application of logic.

Jaguar
Harrier
Nimrod
A400

[orgASMic]

PN - I am quite aware of how the manning distribution ought to look, thank you.

I am not proposing anything. I am supposing that some of us are more equal than others, a cynical position born out of a 23 yr old commission. When did logic ever trouble our elders and betters in the hunt to meet managerial targets?

The Flt Ops specialisation was created almost overnight to replace aircrew in ground appointments at a time when we were short of aircrew on the front line. We are no longer in that position. If Air Officer Battlespace Management fails to make enough noise on Flt Ops' behalf when the deck chairs are being rearranged, then he may end up with fewer troops under command; they could disappear as quickly as they appeared. As Mahogany Bomber said earlier, they have been under fire since their inception because no-one has championed their cause. They are the ginger step-sons and the RAF's first-born will always win out in the end.

[Mahogany_Bomber]

From the very inception of the Flt Ops specialisation (now branch) it has suffered from a number of unaddressed issues including: the poor quality of some individuals within it; a lack of strategic leadership; no effective STANEVAL post Shawbury; Branch Sponsors with bigger fish to fry and a desire from some other elements of the late and unlamented Ops Spt Branch to take on OpsO posts in order to "broaden" their own officers.

Having been fortunate enough to come to the specialisation at a relatively mature age with life and military experience to match I was then well trained, mentored (and b*ll*cked when necessary) in my JO tours and consequently able to operate effectively. Suffice to say I benefited from being properly selected, trained and mentored which was not unfortunately the case for many of my peers and so the reputation of the branch has been done down for many by the inadequacies of a few.

If a thorough review of how to provide Ops Spt at Sqn, Wg and Stn level is undertaken (without any situating of the appreciation beforehand) and the unbiased answer is to do away with the Flt Ops Branch because of reason x, y and z then so be it. Whilst being familiar with the adage that turkeys don't vote for Christmas I do believe that in the current climate a little less self interest and a little more "for the greater good" wouldn't go amiss. That said, I'd hope to see that spirit from the single-service chiefs first before it's visited on us lesser mortals.

MB

[VinRouge]

What would be wrong with considering temporary branch crossover? As long as aircrew mate sees it as an essential aircrew oriented job, both sides have something to gain.

Ops gets to understand things from the aircrew perspective.

Aircrew get to understand actually, we are so drastically under resourced as an organisation and ops, from time to time can make mistakes, but they usually do so after being under-resourced and having an incomplete set of information in front of them. I work with some very talented Ops staff, many of whom having never operated an aircraft, can make far better reasoned judgements into aircraft ops than most aircrew can.

I dont think many Flt Ops guys turn up to work in the morning thinking "you know what, today I cant be @rsed, I think I will screw over a crew".

[Pontius Navigator]

Flt Ops can do a really good job in areas that do not come under the normal purview of aircrew - crash disaster for instance - but can have a weakness regarding operations away from home base - operations by their unit aircraft that is.

There is a lot of 'not been there' 'not done that' 'won't do that so not relevant' :)

[ScorpionDriver]

PN,

Have you actual experience of Ops personnel, both within the FJ world and the Helo world, out on OOA Exercises, in the past two years?

[Easy Street]

Scorpion,

I do, and PN is right.

I have had the recent good fortune to serve at a stn where SLOps was type-qualified aircrew from the resident aircraft type. He acted as a magnificent sh*t-filter for the sqns and things like stats, tasking, etc were all dealt with by his office without much involvement from the flying units. By contrast, on several other postings, SLOps or the equivalent has been run by the Flt Ops branch; in my experience these individuals have not actually filtered anything out and basically forward everything to the sqns for answers / action. Pointless.

[Pontius Navigator]

SD, no.

I was not quite clear in what I meant. It was that when the aircraft was operating in an area different from where the FO was actually operating. I did not mean in-theatre but more where the aircraft was operating away from home base, say 200-300 miles or more. Spatial geography might be one way of putting it.

To give an example, and the snr Ops O at the time was a pilot, the weather was getting rapidly worse than the TAFs and airfields were going black almost as fast as we could ring them. Our one aircraft airborne was 3 hours from base and a flight to base then diversion could have taken 5 hours. We needed to recall the aircraft before we had got a diversion sorted.

Action was needed well before eyes were dotted etc. An unaware FO would have not had a clue. That is not to say one that was top notch could not have done it.

Equally I was being general. Note the word CAN and not ARE.

I am not sure whether you are for or against Flt Ops.

[Jayand]

Party Animal , not strictly true, those on AFPS 75 taking voluntary or compulsary redundancy will be entitled upto 9 months pay but only if they have served more than 16yrs (Commisioned) or 18 yrs (enlisted) reckonable service, if they have less than 3 years left to IP point the package goes down accordingly, 6 months for two yrs, 3 months for l year etc.
Of course most of those with 3 yrs or less won't be in the bracket for redundancy and will instead probably just be culled under natural wastage.

[Mahogany_Bomber]

Brevet good, no brevet bad or as Orwell put it; four legs good, two legs bad. A bit of a generalisation but one that many either allude to or state outright with regard to ops jobs in the RAF. Not all aircrew are unstinting professionals and not all OpsOs are dithering buffoons, most of both inhabit the area between both ends of the capabilty spectrum.

Forgive me for using myself as an example, it is appropriate as I am not untypical of my peers. Having been SLOPs at an MOB, whilst not wishing to get into an internet willy-waving contest when nobody knows my bona fides, I do take exception to the suggestion that I was unlikely to effectively undertake the role by dint of not being aircrew Of greater importance than what I knew was my ability to recognise what I didn't know and in those situations, as when anybody else needed specialist advice, I could turn to any number of SMEs on the stn when necessary. If my competence had been in question then the Staish wouldn't have let me anywhere near the A/OC Ops role which I fulfilled for varying periods over a considerable proportion of my tour.

I'm as aware as anyone of some of the instances when the performance of some individuals within my branch has been less than spectacular but those occasions are far less common than some people, for whatever reason, would lead us to believe.

I'm not "aircrew lite" and I don't pretend to be and that's not what I'm employed to be. I'm an ops spt specialist and after 12 years at the job working across a variety of platforms both in the UK and deployed on operations even I have managed to get pretty good at it. I have no doubt that if you put a pilot or a nav into my job then there are areas of it in which he or she would have greater knowledge than I but equally there are areas which they will have never encountered before which I treat as second nature. The question is whether over the totality of the job the high-quality, experienced aircrew officer would outperform the equally high quality and experienced Flt Ops Officer in an ops spt role? Even if that contest were to prove a draw then in the current economic climate the Flt Ops Officer would possibly win on a financial TKO.

As I have said before, if your OpsO isn't up to muster then address the issue as appropriate. A little advice, guidance and encouragement or chastising as appropriate will be far more beneficial to both the individual and the service than you just walking away and having a moan to you mates later on.

MB

[Party Animal]

Quite right Jayand - I was generalising.

But here's an open question that I haven't heard much about. The details quote tax free pay which I assume includes FP? Is this a correct assumption?

[Jayand]

I am sure I read somewhere the other week that it does not include specialist pay, standing by to be corrected though.

[muttywhitedog]

Are we still paying all those Kinloss-based Nimrod aircrew flying pay when they are not flying?

[Pontius Navigator]

mutty, of course. They will still be on the UE and as redundancy has yet to be announced or posted to non-flying appointments thenthey are still entitled to flying pay.

When they are appointed to ground posts as some here suggest, and IMHO quite likely for some, they will continue, as per the rules, to draw flying pay. Only if they subsequently opt to change branches or opt for non-flying appointments would they lose the pay. The rules are quite clear, the application of those rules is however flexible I believe.

As for PA, I don't know but the same I guess.

[orgASMic]

MUtty - it is worse than that. The whole airfield, including associated manpower and equipment, is still up and running at ISK (and costing money) even though they have no aeroplanes.

[gijoe]

...which is why the personnel should be thinned out to absolute minimum manning to maintain the most basic of an infastructure until the future of ISK is decided. Those not doing anything should be straight on a proper Op tour. Not any of this 2 month, 4 month, 3 weeks rubbish. I do not for a second doubt that MR2 crews have been very busy in the last few years but so has everyone else.

Families - stag on and do what others have been doing for years until that future is fully worked out. Other halves - start coming up with those plans about schools and job like everyone else has to every 2 or 3 years.

There is no profit making organisation in the world that would carry on like this, including putting up with some of the bleating on this and other WSOp threads about being special, and there is no reason why those at ISK are any different.

[Pontius Navigator]

Those not doing anything should be straight on a proper Op tour. Not any of this 2 month, 4 month, 3 weeks rubbish.

Twittered and bistered, Joe?

Op tour doing what exactly?

Although Op tours are generally unestablished, the posts on these tours are not. I imagine there are few generalist posts open to WSOps or MPA officers.

[letsgoandfly]

Joe, as one of the ISK WSOps you mention, I, and many others, just want to get on with life - it's pretty soul-destroying to go in to work and not do much of anything as there is no plan yet.

Jobs have been trickling in but they are a drop in the ocean compared to what's needed. I have been trying for pretty much all of the any trade, anywhere jobs for my rank to no avail so far. We, well the vast majority of us, are professionals who just want to get on with our lives but cannot until the powers that be decide what the plan is.

I don't care if make me redundant or give me a job, I'd prefer to stay but I just want to be able to get on with my life. I can't apply for civilian jobs as I can't afford to PVR and don't know if I'm going to be made redundant but I can't sell my house as I could be made redundant and would therefore need somewhere to live. We are not special, just in a bit of an awkward situation at the moment and, until they let us in on the plan, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't.

[baffman]

Families - stag on and do what others have been doing for years until that future is fully worked out. Other halves - start coming up with those plans about schools and job like everyone else has to every 2 or 3 years.

Those coming up with plans about school and job are presumably equipped with a crystal ball showing where the next posting or civilian employment/unemployment will be located?

IMHO it is ridiculous to try to equate the current situation for those at ISK and elsewhere with the uncertainties of the normal run of the mill posting plot.

As for 'bleating' - how dare military professionals discuss their concerns on a forum provided for discussion amongst errrm, military professionals?

[sled dog]

egdg : ref GiJoe " tremendously food fun"...is he flipping burgers already ?

[Biggus]

....and "bladdered" at 1118?

Still hung over from the night before, or a very early starter? Either way, being "bladdered" just before lunch could be considered a danger sign.

[covec]

Perhaps he gets bladdered easily and has a small d**k!

I believe that ISK is still hosting "government sponsored" flying until 24/7 Foreign MPA support coverage can be sorted out elsewhere.

Re "bleating" and "stagging on". F**k Off. Been doing it since Armilla Patrol, Granby, Sharp Guard, Saif Sarea & 9/11 days. When did you join? The late 90s I suppose.

Get some hair under your ars*!

[Party Animal]

Thanks COVEC - you have put the biggest smile on my face for months during some pretty miserable thread reading, c/o pprune!

:ok::D

[Bannock]

'MUtty - it is worse than that. The whole airfield, including associated manpower and equipment, is still up and running at ISK (and costing money) even though they have no aeroplanes'

Because we have to support the other nations that are plugging our capability gap. In terms of aircrew doing nothing I think you will find that since our 'allies' have filled the gap, ISK aircrew have flown with them and stopped them looking like Ncuts. Well done SNATCHO !

[davejb]

Covec
:ok:

[tridriver]

Having taught a number of Wsops at Sleaford Tech you are more than capable of a wide varity of roles and ground based jobs.

Don't wait for manning, they really don't care that much. Apply for a grd based commission or find a niche job somewhere else, present this to the desky-make his job easy.

Get onto the phone and start look around 'Defence' for that key job and go for it. The system is in too much of astate of shock at the moment to look after your future.

[Pontius Navigator]

tridriver, wise words

[gijoe]

Tridriver, PN,

You have written the wisest words written on this thread...being know-it-alls they probably won't listen or read but you deserve the credit for trying.

G :ok:

[Mr C Hinecap]

Don't wait for manning, they really don't care that much. Apply for a grd based commission

You say that as if Branches are sitting with open arms just begging for entrants. They aren't. It is just the same across every other Branch and Trade right now with uncertainty but knowledge there will be reductions.

[Runaway Gun]

In the past I have researched potential future slots, and then approached my Postings Officer about it. In person he was positive and grateful for my enthusiasm, even stating with a smile and a handshake "You've done my job for me."

However the promised paperwork never arrived two weeks later, and as the months flew by, as did my unanswered emails and telephone calls, he instead decided to shaft me with an extension of my tour.

[tridriver]

RG At least you tried.

The clue is in the name 'Manning' which changed from PMA sometime ago and is now no longer personal (sic) or management. Its not their fault with desk officers now having to cope with between 340-575 aircrew of various shades. I have worked the system to get what I want and have also had my fingers burnt on broken 'gentlemans agreements' so don't rely on the friendly phone, get the JPA notice to move squared away. Getting to know who your desk officer's PA helps in this regard.

Get your RAF career moving forward now, as there are going to be alot of people in the same boat as the Kinloss lads and lasses pretty soon on the Strat/Tac AT fleets.

As for Grd Branches: a CR WSOp is more than capable of filling ANY commissioned grd branch position. I have seen plenty do so. It just takes a change of mindset folks. In my opinion quite a number of grd trades could do with an inject of aircrew can-do/ coal face mentality. Too many 9-5ers with little understanding of the importance of support to operations infest their ranks.

Be positive-as the great sage Clint Eastwood said 'we don't have problems, we have creative opportunities'

PS Don't sell the house, as an Army Major will be paying you top dollar for it in 3 years time!

[Pontius Navigator]

I have worked the system to get what I want and have also had my fingers burnt on broken 'gentlemans agreements' so don't rely on the friendly phone, get the JPA notice to move squared away. Getting to know who your desk officer's PA helps in this regard.

Rule 1. Establish who is being posted first, you or the DO. If the latter you must move fast.

Rule 2. Put it in writing - "Thank you for . . . I am glad we agree . . . I would be delighted to accept the offer . . . " etc etc.

Rule 3. As tri says above.

I once had an agreement that I would continue in my current disestablished post until my original tourex date. As I had started with a 6-month OOA I needed the remaining 18 month before the next shuffle.

Two months later I was posted.

What saved me was the staish and OC Ops batting for me, my poster had only been moved upstairs so he was still called to account, and it had been put in writing.

The new poster was 100% ***d off and not content put together a string of courses, about 8 months, so that he could get me off the unit and clear his books while I remained in my home. I could see where this was going as the alternative was Marham. I accepted. OC Ops called me in and asked if I wanted the posting notice cancelling as per the original deal. I was tempted but knew the poster would always win.

[Pontius Navigator]

Bump:

For those that do not routinely look at the OASC thread there is some good gen there by onefifty about recruitment of WSOp and Pilots - basically none.

"Due to the fewer officer vacancies currently within the RAF, it has been decided that for applications processed from 1 Jan 1011, the academic requirement will be increased to 2 x 'A' levels grade A-C and 5 x GCSC grades A-C. For the aptitude branches (Pilot, ABM, ATC & Int), the maths must be at least grade B.

NON-COMMISSIONED AIRCREW/SNCO ATC

for WSOps hence for the foreseeable future we will not be recruiting for this role. When we do recommence, the academic requirement will remain at 5 x GCSE Grade A-C, one of which must be maths at grade B. NCO ATC will also have this increased academic requirement.

A note on Pilot recruitment:

it is not envisaged that any new recruit pilots will commence employment in the RAF before July 2012. Potential "

There is a bit more on the OASC thread but clearly there will be no competition from civilians for any available posts. Equally, unless the training schools have a moratorium, there will be vacancies in the system for retraining.

[bad bear]

A note on Pilot recruitment:

it is not envisaged that any new recruit pilots will commence employment in the RAF before July 2012. Potential "

So what happens to the basic training empire? Will this mean Basic training almost completely stops for 18 months?


bb

[Pontius Navigator]

BB, that, in a nutshell, is the $64,000 question, answers on a postage stamp please.

[Biggus]

Close it all down, do nothing until MFTS starts up...simple! :ok:

[Wensleydale]

I always used the rule that you could always tell when your DO was lying to you because you could hear him down the phone. I had "duff gen" on 2 occassions early on in my career which led to me not buying a house during my first tour - had I done so I would not have had a mortgage for many years now!

The "contingencies of the Service" was quoted to me with the suggestion of a dismissive shrug. I've not trusted them since, and do not see any evidence to do so in the future.

[BEagle]

Some 20+ years ago, my DeskO told me that my next posting would be what I'd asked for... However, months later I received a posting to a CFS course. I rang him and gave him my "WTF??" comments, but he played the 'exigencies of the Service' trump card. But he told me that I would be posted to somewhere reasonably nearby, which sweetened the pill considerably.

However, on arrival at CFS I found that a colleague had been given the promise of the same posting which grated somewhat. CFS also said that Barnwood couldn't make such a promise anyway. However, my colleague and I agreed not to fall out over it; whoever did best on the course would get the choice. But the RN people on the course asked who this 'Barny Wood' person was who we kept moaning about!

In the end it worked out OK; although I was lucky enough to get the posting in question, Barnwood engineered things so that my colleague wasn't disadvantaged by the allowances regime by 'detaching' rather than 'posting' him; he had 12 months of weekly commuting but his squadron let him stack early and start late - and as he worked a 'Christian' week rather than our Wed-Sun week, he actually saw more of his family than he would have done if he'd had the other posting. But Barnwood looked after him and he was reposted somewhere nearby as soon as he'd got his B1 and a slot came up.

The moral of the story being that DeskOs can be flexible - or rather they could back then. There are many tales of being 'stitched' by a DeskO, but I'm quite certain that they will always do the best they can for an individual. Although whilst I was doing some PVR-porridge time at Barnwood, a DeskO commented "You lucky $od, I b****y well wish I was leaving!":eek:

[Pontius Navigator]

BEagle, you are right about DOs helping where it doesn't actually affect their plot.

When I married he helpfully rearranged detachements to become a posting thus entitling me to a MQ. Later, escaping from ISL on a 6-month sentence pre-release, he initially detatched me but on representing my circumstances I was posted and then detached. This was as money issues started to bite - 25 years ago! and it needed the agreement of my new unit to have me non-productive on the books for 6 months.

[dctyke]

Quote:
A note on Pilot recruitment:

it is not envisaged that any new recruit pilots will commence employment in the RAF before July 2012. Potential "
So what happens to the basic training empire? Will this mean Basic training almost completely stops for 18 months?


bb


My civvy mate at Linton on Ouse said there was a big hush,hush meeting with the contractors this week, feasability study etc etc.
The end is near I fear!!!!!!

[fabs]

Don't think the meeting was hush hush. I heard Harry got the whole stn in the auditorium and told everyone there is a feasibility study going on.

[JliderPilot]

Latest top level messages from high does not mention 'voluntary redundancies' only compulsory.

"An Armed Forces redundancy programme will aim to reduce the number of Service personnel while maintaining a satisfactory balance of skills, experience, ability and seniority in rank throughout the Armed Forces to enable delivery of operational requirements.
• A compulsory redundancy programme will be developed under the terms of Armed Forces Redundancy Scheme 2006 (AFRS 06) and AFRS 10.
• A comprehensive implementation programme will be developed. The single Services will publish details as soon as they have identified redundancy fields.
• Decisions on those selected for redundancy will be made by the single Services, and may include applicants (from the identified redundancy fields) as well as non-applicants.
• Transition of those selected for redundancy will be managed through the appropriate resettlement package.
• The value of redundancy payments will depend on which Armed Forces Pension Scheme individuals belong to."



Are they leaking out subtle changes bit by bit so come March 2011 the rules will have changed again?

[Biggus]

Jlider,

It's all about management speak.

I'm about 99% certain that I saw somewhere recently that, in terms of the SDR decreases in manpower, you can "volunteer" to be made compulsary redundant....work that one out!

[Pontius Navigator]

Decisions on those selected for redundancy will be made by the single Services, and may include applicants (from the identified redundancy fields) as well as non-applicants.

This is pretty standard. For Applicants read volunteers. For redundancy fields means don't bank on it yet.

In the 70s F4/Bucc navs were not allowed to volunteer whereas Canberra navs were.

[yaffle]

Feasibility study at Linton has three outcomes (i was told by someone who was there)
A: move Tucano to Leeming by 2013
B: move future training with new a/c to Valley by 2016
C: there is no option C
bye bye Linton

This marks the RAFs complete withdrawl from N Yorks.

oh apart from 100sqn at Leeming.

[BEagle]

How long before 100 Sqn goes the same way that 45/58 Sqns did at Wittering in 1976?

I'm surprised that some beancounter hasn't yet called time on 100....:(

Ascent, in its role as the Training System Partner (TSP), is charged with ensuring that when all the programme pipelines have been implemented they collectively deliver the training as specified within the holistic TSD.Well, whatever that drivel is supposed to mean, they must be offering some pretty good salaries, terms and conditions if they expect to attract all those Flight Instructors to Anglesey....:\

[dctyke]

Quote:
Don't think the meeting was hush hush. I heard Harry got the whole stn in the auditorium and told everyone there is a feasibility study going on.

Whole Station? Only blue suits were invited, the many many civilians (many ex RAF) who do 80% of the the jobs at Linton were not invited!

The prev poster (yaffle) has got it about right!

[fabs]

Those civvies at the back must have sneaked in then. I understand it was Babcock who told their employees not to attend.