Raf"s Jolly To Alps Is Snow Joke
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Firstly, I don't know why CAS is miffed as it would have not even come out of his budget - 33 Sqn work for JHC who get their budget from Land Command i.e. the Army!
Secondly if they took the opportunity to do some adventurous training then that sound like efficient use of time and resources. (I am not going into the justification for adventurous trg here.)
Thirdly where can you find real mountains in the UK that compare to those on the continent? Where can you guarantee the snow?
M609 I think you'll find that BDU is full for the winter trg period as far as JHC is concerned.
GB2
Secondly if they took the opportunity to do some adventurous training then that sound like efficient use of time and resources. (I am not going into the justification for adventurous trg here.)
Thirdly where can you find real mountains in the UK that compare to those on the continent? Where can you guarantee the snow?
M609 I think you'll find that BDU is full for the winter trg period as far as JHC is concerned.
GB2
Why are we seemingly always having to justify what we are doing in the name of training? Our 1st and 2nd RO's are not going to take the risk of letting us worker bees "enjoy" ourselves at the taxpayers expense if our training isn't "proper" training but heh if we do enjoy ourselves should we feel guilty?
I think Mikehegland is a journo looking for a reaction to get a story.
Or maybe he really is a pilot, just constantly throwing out lines for us to bite on...
Either way he comes across as an arrogant, ignorant civvie with the opinionated drivel he posts
Or maybe he really is a pilot, just constantly throwing out lines for us to bite on...
Either way he comes across as an arrogant, ignorant civvie with the opinionated drivel he posts
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I know you have to get the snow (available in loads of other places cheaper than switzerland), but isnt 250 grand a bit much, if it is an accurate figure?
Thats about 5 times a Naval Air Squadron's annual T & S budget ffs!!
Thats about 5 times a Naval Air Squadron's annual T & S budget ffs!!
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How much of that £250k would have been spent anyway? It works out at about 2 Puma flying hours per day for the period, at a reasonable guesstimate or £6k/hour, which sounds like a reasonable training rate to me. Accommodation provided by the Swiss, so free or at least cheap, fuel, engineering etc would have been paid for anyway, and they won't have been on LSSA as, IIRC, you need to do more than 30 days for that.
So what's actually happened is that 33 have used some of their annual allocation of training hours - which, yes, are expensive - to do quality training, and had fun in between. How can any sane person have a problem with that?
BCH
So what's actually happened is that 33 have used some of their annual allocation of training hours - which, yes, are expensive - to do quality training, and had fun in between. How can any sane person have a problem with that?
BCH
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I am disgusted!
They could have gone on that other alcohol fuelled jolly, the annual RAF Ski Championships, with a small personal contribution.....
Personally speaking, when I was overseas on Her Majesty's business, I took my own small tent with me. I would pitch it outside the hotel (normally only 4 star alas) and send all my unspent rates back to the Ministry of Defence with instructions to Mr Hoon to spend it as he saw fit, especially if it assisted in some way with our administration or gathering knowledge from first-class consultants!
Even better, the £250K could have been spent on air transport for our own Dear Leader and the First Family. Perhaps there is urgent business in the Caribbean that needs discussion?
Perhaps some reservists faked the whole thing to get some money out of the Mirror?!?!
Is this the same CAS who (allegedly) said he no longer considers JHC assets part of the RAF?!?!
They could have gone on that other alcohol fuelled jolly, the annual RAF Ski Championships, with a small personal contribution.....
Personally speaking, when I was overseas on Her Majesty's business, I took my own small tent with me. I would pitch it outside the hotel (normally only 4 star alas) and send all my unspent rates back to the Ministry of Defence with instructions to Mr Hoon to spend it as he saw fit, especially if it assisted in some way with our administration or gathering knowledge from first-class consultants!
Even better, the £250K could have been spent on air transport for our own Dear Leader and the First Family. Perhaps there is urgent business in the Caribbean that needs discussion?
Read where it originated......MIRROR GROUP!!!
Firstly, I don\'t know why CAS is miffed as it would have not even come out of his budget - 33 Sqn work for JHC who get their budget from Land Command i.e. the Army!
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Thats about 5 times a Naval Air Squadron's annual T & S budget ffs!!
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There is no way that £250K T&S would be incurred! My estimate is that the T&S maximum would have been around 10% of the total, around £25K. This is still a mere 50% of the T&S budget I ran in my last job! Still, it's at the end of the FY and if you don't spend it, you get less next year.
Also, this would have been authorised, by delegated authority, all the way up to the (ignomiously entitled) bottom-level budget holder - ie the CO. It probably featured in a budget plan submitted in late 03/04 - or at least the funds for some sort of exercise were authorised!
The whole MOD budget setup is b@lls in any case, and bears little resemblence to how funds are actually spent. Finally, I was not an adminner or budgeteer and never have been, except when it has raised its head as an associated or secondary duty.
Also, this would have been authorised, by delegated authority, all the way up to the (ignomiously entitled) bottom-level budget holder - ie the CO. It probably featured in a budget plan submitted in late 03/04 - or at least the funds for some sort of exercise were authorised!
The whole MOD budget setup is b@lls in any case, and bears little resemblence to how funds are actually spent. Finally, I was not an adminner or budgeteer and never have been, except when it has raised its head as an associated or secondary duty.
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What's the fuss all about? Such dets have happened in the past. I'm sure the older, (wiser?) blokes reading this thread will recall with fondness "Luckies" in Oberamagau. And the long back garden. 
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mikehegland, im going to lay the gauntlet down, you obviously dont know the slightest little thing about Military aviation. So what is your background?
Get it onto the open rather that hiding behind posts that dont reveal anything about you.
Get it onto the open rather that hiding behind posts that dont reveal anything about you.
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If you really truthfully can justify a trip to Switzerland to go mountain flying then go Mountain flying.
If you really truthfully can justify a trip to Switzerland to go skiing then go skiing.
BUT....Don't attempt top Justify a skiing holiday to switzerland for 40 people for 23 days on the back of a feeble excuse like mountain flying.
If you really truthfully can justify a trip to Switzerland to go skiing then go skiing.
BUT....Don't attempt top Justify a skiing holiday to switzerland for 40 people for 23 days on the back of a feeble excuse like mountain flying.
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I think there is a troll infestation! I can't resist responding to some of the posts, but without the normal sense of outrage one feels towards a true adversary.
Aahh, Oberammergau...has anyone actually timed it so they see the Passion Play, rather than merely enjoying the Zugspitz, the Garmisch PX and Munich on the lash?!?
I had a great jolly in Athens not so long ago, p!ssed all week, ferried out to an officers' club resort on the coast, got more p!ssed, danced (in a Zorba the Greek convoluted manner) with the Greek chief of air force staff...didn't put my hand in my pocket, took lots of rates back home, the hospitality book still gathered dust in the office.
Any more fine jollies...sorry, frugal dispensation of taxpayers' monies?!?
Aahh, Oberammergau...has anyone actually timed it so they see the Passion Play, rather than merely enjoying the Zugspitz, the Garmisch PX and Munich on the lash?!?
I had a great jolly in Athens not so long ago, p!ssed all week, ferried out to an officers' club resort on the coast, got more p!ssed, danced (in a Zorba the Greek convoluted manner) with the Greek chief of air force staff...didn't put my hand in my pocket, took lots of rates back home, the hospitality book still gathered dust in the office.
Any more fine jollies...sorry, frugal dispensation of taxpayers' monies?!?
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Mike,
This sort of environmental training is a good way to spend taxpayers money by maintaining a credible capability to enable us to fight in the winter in places like Afghanistan, Kosovo and Bosnia for example. Wasn't is a recommendation of the Kosovo Puma Fatal Crash BOI that crashed in whiteout conditions high in the mountains that we continue to train in such environments to avoid such happenings in the future?
So, capability aside, if you take a very financial view its spending money wisely to save money to avoid replacing expensive aircrew and machines!
ZIC
This sort of environmental training is a good way to spend taxpayers money by maintaining a credible capability to enable us to fight in the winter in places like Afghanistan, Kosovo and Bosnia for example. Wasn't is a recommendation of the Kosovo Puma Fatal Crash BOI that crashed in whiteout conditions high in the mountains that we continue to train in such environments to avoid such happenings in the future?
So, capability aside, if you take a very financial view its spending money wisely to save money to avoid replacing expensive aircrew and machines!
ZIC
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Thats all very well but what you are failing to understand is that it is Joe Public that you need to persuade...and he reads the Daily Mirror where he reads articles about the RAF spending £250k on a skiing trip and then he reads the Current Bun where he reads a story about the OC of a squadron having an affair with one of his Officers....
Great PR machine the AF have.
and so what does Joe Public think of that lot then. For a start his idea of an AF Officer is someone with slicked back hair, a handlebar tache and who constantly spills his Pimms whilst shouting Hoooorah !... Thats what Joe thinks the AF is like...and reading his daily rag does nothing to persuade him otherwise. And, so what does the great PR machine do (whilst bleating that the AF is so short of money we are forcing to make redundancies) we send a squadron on a skiing holiday....Great,. Thats done the trick then. Joe and his mates will think we are all great now then. And rermember, it is Joe who pays our wages and in particular it is Joe who votes.
Great PR machine the AF have.
and so what does Joe Public think of that lot then. For a start his idea of an AF Officer is someone with slicked back hair, a handlebar tache and who constantly spills his Pimms whilst shouting Hoooorah !... Thats what Joe thinks the AF is like...and reading his daily rag does nothing to persuade him otherwise. And, so what does the great PR machine do (whilst bleating that the AF is so short of money we are forcing to make redundancies) we send a squadron on a skiing holiday....Great,. Thats done the trick then. Joe and his mates will think we are all great now then. And rermember, it is Joe who pays our wages and in particular it is Joe who votes.
Great PR machine the AF have.
Of course, we'll next be getting stories about time in the desert spent building sandcastles, sight-seeing trips over Baghdad and the like. What exactly would you and the Mirror have us do with our time and resources?? Just sit there doing cock-all until the moment they might actually be needed, by which time, skill-fade has set in so deep that nobody has a clue how to do their job any more, so they may as well wing it - "after all Carruthers, it would be a jolly bad show if we didn't at least give it a bash what what! Never be able to show my face in the Mess again to order another Pimms if I let the Sqn down". And then having tried to wing it, they plough into the side of a mountain.
And there's another headline for the Mirror - this time about how we can't do our job because we don't have the training to do it properly. But if it's in the Mirror it must be true. I just think that we could improve morale a bit more by buying proper toilet paper. As for Sir Jock being annoyed ...... of course - he's a choirboy isn't he. Never did anything like that in his day ..... hmmm
If you want to talk about value for money - £250K for 40 people for 23 days works out at under £300 per person (yes I know it's a crude average that doesn't take into account various other factors), but bloody hell, show me where else you could get that same amount of training for so many people at such a low cost per person? And if they get to have a bit of fun thrown into the bargain after all the crap they've had thrown at them over the past years - the sh*t dets, the cutbacks, the bad management from their airships, the fact that when they go home their families don't recognise them because it's been that long since they were home - then so be it. If you think that a some decent training that also happens to be enjoyable isn't warranted after that lot, then you come and have a go at the job .......
assuming you're not a complete pussy or are you just one of the wheezy old fat boys sitting on the sidelines with a note from matron, happy to critisize but won't get of your arse to help.
And no that's not a bite - that's me taking a bloody great chunk out!
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Mike,
Bravo - excellent fishing, old boy.
Sorry to spoil your fun but PLEASE stop casting. To see so many people 'biting' has made my sides hurt - seriously, I haven't laughed so much in ages!
Come on the rest of you, chill out, this chap is not really being serious!
However, I just worry someone will say something they will regret. Or, God forbid, tell the truth about how hard detachments and exercises really are!
Bravo - excellent fishing, old boy.
Sorry to spoil your fun but PLEASE stop casting. To see so many people 'biting' has made my sides hurt - seriously, I haven't laughed so much in ages!
Come on the rest of you, chill out, this chap is not really being serious!
However, I just worry someone will say something they will regret. Or, God forbid, tell the truth about how hard detachments and exercises really are!