Holding Times

[cheifofdefence]

As this is a rumour network anyone know if there is any substance to a recent rumour I heard that baby pilots leaving Cranwell will soon be subject to extensive holds prior to starting their basic flying training and if so does it mean we are now over recruiting?

[Door Slider]

I know a couple of guys who have recently completed IOT and have a 9 month hold prior to starting EFT

[gijoe]

Back to the mid-90s again. Some non-grads did FT degrees whilst holding.

[salad-dodger]

Cue the usual PPRuNe boring old farts telling us how long they held for in 1957.

:ugh: in advance!

[GipsyMagpie]

MFTS is bound to cause a holdup or six.

[Pontius Navigator]

Contrast long holds post training to long holds before OASC. At least youb are getting paid and gaining experience.

[Ascoteer]

With manning forecasting significant (up to 33%) shortages across all streams in the next few years, and those figures based on recruitment and training taps open fully, this is not going to help matters!

[GipsyMagpie]

http://www.photocopierexperts.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2012/09/toshibaestudio4540c.jpg

What experience though?

[ExRAFRadar]

Always retrain as photocopier repair person

[BEagle]

Is the delay down to resource limitations? Why on earth there should be any delay following IOT is a question which should be answered.

Or is it all down to the creeping cancer of contractorisation and MFTS?

[GipsyMagpie]

My own experience was that each course never quite matches up to the next one. The RAF should have a holding unit from which guys can string together the vast myriad of adventurous training and academic courses that are available. If i had my time again I'd be a Yacht master, I'd have done about half of the Defence Academy Science and Technology courses and have about a 1000 parachute jumps. But instead i did media ops.

[aw ditor]

Can't recall this BOF' doing any holding in 1957, despite the notorious White Paper.

[Ken Scott]

I'm not sure why the RAF still bothers to train its own ME pilots - just send them to one of the civvy training schools such as Oxford Aviation, complete a frozen ATPL cse & be on an OCU in a year post IOT. They'd still be on a ROS post OCU & with an ATPL in their back pockets already they might be a bit less restless about completing licences & moving on in their early 30s which is very much the norm today. If they did decide to leave then the Oxford path would furnish their replacements much faster & more cost effectively than MFTS & their 5 Phenoms. If we had to use them for something it could be for an RAF orientation case covering low-level, formation etc pre-OCU.

Post IOT student pilots could be offered the option of waiting years for the MFTS route to hopefully fly a FJ or rotary or volunteering for civil ME training straight away.

[Pontius Navigator]

Ken,that begs the question, do we recruit ME pilots? Last heard only FJ pilots were recruited with ME slots from those streamed later on.

As for holds, the arbiter is the OCU. With only two FJ OCU streams, if that is right, they determine the rate of transfer from the training system. Input to the training system will have been based on future requirements and anticipated failure rates.

If requirements shrink, or are late arising, if failures are fewer, if OCU slots are taken up with re-rolling aircrew, then it is inevitable that there will be holds.

Magpie suggests a holding unit, such a unit would be established, staffed and accommodated and therefore come at a budget cost. Money would have to be diverted.

OTOH if the holding officer can be stuffed in to some unit as an ops assistant (SAC level) or a gofer job, provided there is some worthwhile job they may learn and even become productive at little cost.

[Ken Scott]

PN - true, all pilots recruited need FJ potential but with the ME fleet expanding & the FJ fleet the smallest it's ever been then giving people the option of a fast track to a ME OCU or years holding for a possible seat in a Typhoon/ F35, particularly if it comes with a frozen ATPL? Plus places on a commercial cse are relatively cheap in mil terms & the provider could probably expand capacity if required with a degree more flexibility than Ascent which, it is alleged, cannot provide the throughput now required by the RAF.

[Just This Once...]

I am in no way suggesting our training system is efficient or productive but it continually outpaces the absorption rate of our operational conversion units.

The absolute reluctance to produce aircraft available for conversion training, over and above those required for operational tasks, has allowed our conversion-to-type system to wither on the vine.

[BEagle]

Why not combine EFT/BFT and IOT into one continuous course? It could take place at a single site, perhaps in Lincolnshire?

Give the site a catchy name - 'Royal Air Force College', perhaps?

Then AFT on that little bizjet for ME at RAFC, for FJ on the Hawk at Valley - and RW at wherever?

:hmm:

[Pontius Navigator]

BEagle, certainly no excuse for the initial post-IOT courses as their input should have been fine tuned to the IOT output. I think IOT output is near 100% so provided the flow from AFCO was correct . . .

Are AFCO/OASC banking applicants and IOT flexing to take them? Look like that is the case.

[just another jocky]

Nurse, nurse.....they're at it again. Someone must have woken them up. Can we increase the dose this time? :}

[pr00ne]

Two things the military have never been able to do, and now seem to be worse worse than ever at;
1) Run a budget and 2) Plan personnel numbers.

[BEagle]

3) Procure an aircrew torch fit for purpose.

4) Procure a chinagraph fit for purpose.

5) Learn from the lessons of the past.

[Just This Once...]

Two things the military have never been able to do, and now seem to be worse worse than ever at;
1) Run a budget and 2) Plan personnel numbers.

The military don't have control of money or personnel numbers, for that you have to look at the Treasury and politicians.

[Ken Scott]

That's true for the capped limit on personnel but controlling inflow & outflow is within their remit.

[Just This Once...]

There is not a great deal the military can do about outflow. The military has almost zero control on pay, pensions, housing, subsistence, allowances, operational deployments, civil servants, contractors, PFIs or a brace of other things that provide the push-factor.

The resource directors at the frontline commands have authority for amounts up to £250k with prohibitions on novel or contentious spends within that; everything else requires the Treasury. The Treasury is quite adept at forcing costs onto the MoD's books despite its protests / common sense / common decency (e.g. recovery of army RRP(F)).

No CEO could run a company with such shackles but this is what we ask of the Service Chiefs. Even when waste or stupidity hits the media the editors seem incapable of pinning the blame on anyone but the military. The Treasury must just roll around laughing when the MoD gets the blame.

[Pontius Navigator]

JTO is partly controllable. End of engagement is one known. Less predictable is RTS, and largely unpredictable is PVR. The latter can be controlled to some extent through waiting times.

The problem with the last and to some extent the others is the toxicity engendered by holding on to people who have mentally resigned.

[Just This Once...]

EoE is known but retention beyond this first exit point is one of the great unknowns.

What is becoming clear is that aircrew manning at more senior levels (SQEP, specialist, instructor, staff, joint & higher command) requires a retention rate from the vanishingly small pool of junior aircrew of nearly 100%....

[Pontius Navigator]

Not aircrew but my daughter just banged at her 38 point, future mobility, family stability and AFPS 15 all push factors. Her husband jumped in November aged 48, AFPS15 again being the push.

[pr00ne]

Of course CEO's have similar limits, only rather than being set by a budget they are set by the Chairman, shareholders, investors and the City.

Budget and personnel mismanagement by VSO's is rife in Main Building.

[Just This Once...]

No, you are mistaken - market forces and business need set the remuneration package, not an arbitrary limit set by an external agency that is unconcerned with the business in question. It would be an odd business that allowed its most valuable people to leave, costing the business millions in the process, as a result of paying them a fraction of the market rate.

[obnoxio f*ckwit]

...my daughter just banged at her 38 point...

:E:E:E:E:E

(wish there was a little devil smiley)

[ShotOne]

Is the implication of the OP's question that we're off to hell in a handcart? If so, it's hardly a new idea; prior to my BFTS course (80's) we all held for between 4 and 7 months which was considered quite usual.

[downsizer]

We keep getting briefed that CASs number 1 priority is people and retention. I've seen nothing of the sort at my level....anyone else?:confused:

[ExStacker]

While holds are nothing new it does beg the question as to why the current officer training course was recently compressed to 24 weeks in order to get pilots to the frontline (i.e. P8) quicker when all it actually has achieved is to get pilots onto their holds quicker? Surely the capacity of the Phase 2 training pipeline was considered when the decision to shorten officer training to the minimum military requirement was taken - or am I missing something?

[Ken Scott]

Gover Policy would seem to be investment in shiny new kit whilst simultaneously reducing the cost of the workforce that operates it through pay restraint, pension reform etc.

I guess it's easier to brag about your defence spending by showing a line of brand new Scruggs Wonderjets than it is by pointing to a bunch of pilots & engineers that were retained by a judicious FRI payment or improved pension offer.......

[Could be the last?]

I am assuming, now that MFTS is up and running, there should only be 2 holding points - post Cranwell and immediately prior to an OCU, and any delay between the 2 will incur a penalty?

[reynoldsno1]

I had to hold for 6 months prior to OCU. I volunteered to go to Berlin to help organise the airshow for the 25th anniversary of the end of the Airlift. It was awful, simply awful ... :}

[just another jocky]

I am assuming, now that MFTS is up and running,....


What is it they say....? ;)

[TorqueOfTheDevil]

now that MFTS is up and running


I count two parts of MFTS up and running so far, with three still to start. Slightly premature to suggest that MFTS as a whole is up and running!


the creeping cancer of contractorisation


Ah yes, that cancer which has created such a shambles in the RW pipeline for over 20 years now :ugh:

[Davef68]

I am assuming, now that MFTS is up and running, there should only be 2 holding points - post Cranwell and immediately prior to an OCU, and any delay between the 2 will incur a penalty?

But if, as mentioned above, post-IOT hold is due to lack of spaces at OCU post-flight training, then if planned properly there should be minimal holds between MFTS and OCU.

[Basil]

The resource directors at the frontline commands have authority for amounts up to £250k
I've just noticed that a VSO associated with a venue which I frequent has responsibility for a £3b budget.
I have to admit to having no idea how those compare or fit in or how such sums can or cannot be allotted.