Flying Grading Reports

[Muz165]

Good afternoon,

1. Can I ask politeley to see a flying grading report?

2. If not, can I ask again, along with a freedom of information request, as it is a personal record?

3. Does anyone know how Flying Grading compares from RN to Army? Would a pass with one automatically count as a pass for another?

Thanks in advance for your help,

[MG]

Hopefully, a reasonably worded request will get you what you want. A formal FoI request (or in your case, a Subject Access Request) is a right royal pain to answer as you have to go through all of the act and state why, or why not, the request has been granted.

[4Greens]

In my day it was all in your logbook. Times have changed.

[switch_on_lofty]

1. You can always ask!

2. As it's a personal record it comes under Data Protection rather than FOI I think. If option 1 doesn't work, if you suggest option 2 they may change their mind!

3. Not sure how different it would seem to you, there may be differences in exactly what qualities they are looking for, which probably wouldn't be apparent to you when you are flying a circuit or something.
Wouldn't automatically carry across although as the skills are the same you will probably perform similarly in both.

[Pheasant]

Lofty,

I can see no reason why you shouldn't see your report. As far as similarities are concerned I would not expect the grading to be transferable. The army are looking for rotary only and much of the assessment will have this in mind, the RN are looking for F35 pilots ie Fast Jet and then rotary. In addition the RN have a very sophisticated grading system such that the score from grading combined with EFT can be a key indicator of future success, particularly for FJ.

[Stuff]

I'm sure the RN are amazing at flying gradings but can you really describe the process of adding 2 scores together as sophisticated?

[Alister101]

I've only done the special flying award - 2 week aquaint where you do grading + bits of EFT - with the Urnu and afterwards I was shown the grading report. This was used for when I apply the AIB have a report of my past performance and if accepted when I do grading they can compare my score. Whether or not it's the same report I'm unsure, but by the sounds of it I think it was.
The report had a performance number system, 1-6 based on poor to exceptional in categories such as psychomotor skills, motivation, capacity, Officer qualities etc
I was told all 3s were most likely to go rotary, 4+ fw.


In terms of army grading, I'm guessing here, but I would assume so. The army flying program (soldiers in the sky?) showed AAC pilots going through their grading. By the looks of it, it was the same thing I did when we did the grading course in the SFA. Grading is meant to see if you can handle the strains of military flight. If given 2 weeks and a strict syllabus, and you can regurgitate it to a good standard afterwards then it shows you have the mental capacity to cope with the military strains. At that stage, it's a process to see if you can cope. As the army do this aswell, this gives my reasons to why they are transferable.

Why you would want to switch services so early in your career, I dunno but I'm not a pilot so I don't know.

Hope it helps.

[Pheasant]

Stuff I'm sure the RN are amazing at flying gradings but can you really describe the process of adding 2 scores together as sophisticated?

Actually yes. The RN has significant records of OAS, grading and EFT scores. An analysis conducted about 10 years ago demonstrated the whilst OAS scores gave almost no prediction of future success, grading and EFT emphatically did. In over 200 examples future success in role could be identified from these results, often down to aircraft type. Using this process the RN failure rate (particularly in FJ) was demonstrated to be significantly lower than the RAF and thus the training more cost effective. As the RAF did not conduct grading, and UAS training was conducted over too long a period to make sensible assessment, they had no ability to predict future success - and some said their training pipeline had to compensate as a result. Of course the wider options for streaming pilots in the RAF served to mask the lack of analytical support. The RN could not afford to recruit lots of potential pilots in the hope they succeeded.

I should qualify my statement on OAS above. Whist OAS scores do not correlate with likely success they are absolutely essential as a filter for identifying aircrew/not aircrew.