APO's

[The mother alligator]

Reading the RAF news yesterday, and saw the Cranwell graduation box, with the names of all those who have graduated from 200 IOT. I was just wondering, when someone is comissioned as Acting Pilot Officer, does this mean that they were an NCO before starting IOT? Those commissioned as Plt Off are all DE's, and those who are commissioned as Flg Off are graduate entrants, is this correct? How many IOT courses are there each year?
Any information much appreciated in advance,
Regards,
TMA

[WhichWay?]

Nope. APO is the rank below Plt Off, the first commisioned rank; I should know I was one for 6 months!

Not that you see many of them now, especially aircrew.

WW

[brit bus driver]

Me too! :ok:

And a plt off co-plt, and a fg off at my captaincy board........'twould appear that I have stagnated now though!!

:cool:

[opso]

To be horribly pedantic, APO was the lowest rank possible of a Cranwell graduate, but it wasn't the first commissioned rank. Strictly speaking, an APOs commission wasn't confirmed until promotion to the heady heights of Plt Off - hence the delay in receiving the commissioning scroll.

Anyway, I thought that APO (along with JT and Chf Tech) was a rank that has been/will be axed as one of the few bits of the Bett Report to be adopted.

[Whipping Boy's SATCO]

opso, keep up!!! Didn't you know that JT was on it's way back. (I do not jest).:hmm:

[ally02]

There are 3 squadrons and between them they run 6 IOT courses a year (each one lasting 24 weeks). The next course will be 204 course which starts on the first Sunday in June, then 205 on August 10th (the course I'll be joining!). The full list is Feb, Apr, Jun, Aug, Oct, Dec. Hope that helps!

Ally
x

[Training Risky]

In my opinion the RAF has successfully countered most types of discrimination: racial, gender and sexual orientation/transsexualism (sp?).

What is left to combat, is the raw deal given to non-university graduates at Cranwell. (Can you guess what I am....?)

I was a 22 year old with 3 A-levels, decided against university, who travelled the world, got various flying licences, and worked in the flying industry, before I joined the RAF as a pilot.

It me took 6 1/2 years to reach Flt Lt.

Conversely, some johnny f*cknuts who scraped his A-levels, got into the polyversity of Hull, scraped a pass degree in Drama while being a zany, wacky kinda guy on the UAS...... graduates as a Plt Off, Fg Off almost immediately, and gets Flt Lt in 2 years from Cranwell.

Now come on.... not all graduates follow this trend. But is the reverence that the RAF bestows on the almighty degree, justified???


I'm sure there are others out there who feel they have been given unfairly poor recognition of their abilities when measuring themselves up against their peers who happen to have gone to uni.

Maybe this unfair slant on enhanced rank is there to entice highly qualified engineers, etc into the RAF, and enables them to start on much higher pay.

But as it stands, all APOs with comparable LIFE experience to uni graduates get a stinking raw deal.

Any takers?

[BEagle]

With the financial pressures of University and the attraction of EFT rather than UAS to many, it probably won’t be long before non-graduates form the majority at Cranwell rather than the minority - apart from Engineers, etc.

A far cry from the ‘Green Shield’ days of the ‘aerocrat’!

[The mother alligator]

I didn't realise they run so many courses! I got told that they only accept 60 pilots a year, if they run all these courses and there are quite a lot of pilots on every course, then surely they actually take on more than that? Does anyone have a rough figure of how many pilots are accepted per year, and what the breakdown of that figure is i.e. proportion of graduates, non-graduates, servicemen entrants etc.

[goldcup]

2 years to get Flt Lt! How dreadful. Do a 4 year degree, get a cadetship et viola! Grad as a Fg Off, and 8 months later, you're a Flt Lt.

[Mystic Greg]

Sorry to point out another error from Opso, but APO is a commissioned rank. My own scroll quite clearly instructs me ".......dilligently to discharge (my) Duty as such in the Rank of Acting Pilot Officer or in such other Rank as We may from time to time hereafter be pleased to promote or appoint you to....." What I have never been sure about, however, is what an APO's substantive rank is. Any takers?

[opso]

Odd, Greg, mine clearly says as a Pilot Officer and arrived some 8 months after graduation (ie 2 months after reaching the dizzying height of Plt Off) despite the fact that I was a DE and so left IOT as an APO.:confused:

Just confirms my suspicion that they're handing out commissions to anyone these days! ;)

[Double Hush]

Following on to BEagle's reply, I though that the Service were trying to move away from Graduate entrants towards Direct Entrants. This was aimed at getting a younger product into the training system who, once qualified, wouldn't be late twenties/early thirties, with wife/husband and 2.2 children and would therefore accept all the detachments/operations/wars thrown at him/her with less impact on home life.

Some years ago an Educator visited my squadron to assess the impact of this policy and the viability of said younger entrants then doing their degree whilst in the service. She seemed surprised when she received the reply that it probably wouldn't be possible with all the other demands on an individual's time i.e. OCC/ISS/squadron & station secondary duties and, of course, the many detachments.

Any news on how far this plan has got?