New Flying Badges
Join Date: May 2015
Location: England
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Still gripes me to my bones seeing Air Cadet adult volunteers wearing glider wings in the mess, achieved after a week of gliding around Nottinghamshire, surrounded in the mess by stressed future pilots still in the training pipeline.
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Great Britain
Age: 51
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Looks sensible to me.
By the way, the glider pilot wings are for Qualified Gliding Instructors - a bit more than a week of gliding, I’m afraid! There is also a standard CFS upgrade route of B2, B1, A2 and A1 through the normal CFS process. It might not be the same achievement of getting CR on a FL type, but it isn’t given away with a packet of cornflakes either.
12-18 months of graft over their weekends to get B2: https://www.raf.mod.uk/aircadets/wan...on-instructor/
By the way, the glider pilot wings are for Qualified Gliding Instructors - a bit more than a week of gliding, I’m afraid! There is also a standard CFS upgrade route of B2, B1, A2 and A1 through the normal CFS process. It might not be the same achievement of getting CR on a FL type, but it isn’t given away with a packet of cornflakes either.
12-18 months of graft over their weekends to get B2: https://www.raf.mod.uk/aircadets/wan...on-instructor/
One is wearing a badge they are entitled to wear in accordance with policy, having completed the requisite course.
The other is carrying out the necessary training required in order to wear a different badge.
It makes sense to use the RAF’s pattern for our wings. Prior to this, the QGI flying badge looked way too Army for my liking. Here are the Army flying badges:
Glider Pilot Regiment Pilot wings. At first all Glider Pilots were awarded the Army Flying Badge (top). From 1944 new pilots were initially trained as Second Pilots and awarded the Second Glider Pilot Badge (middle). Successful completion of a Heavy Glider Conversion Course qualified Second Pilots for the Army Flying Badge. This system operated until 1950 when glider training ceased. In 1946 a smaller pattern of the Army Flying Badge was adopted (bottom). (Source: https://juleswings.wordpress.com/201...p-carousel-378)
So I think the flying badge posted by Wensleydale for the “Reserve Pilot (Gliding)” is spot on. Different enough (blue laurel with a ‘G’) from the traditional RAF Pilot flying badge but close enough to look like it belongs on an RAF uniform. The previous was way too pongo!
The RAF ‘VR’ badge used by 500hrs+ AEF civil qualified Pilots has been around for a while now (first presented to OC 12 AEF at RAF Turnhouse, I believe, in the early 90s). Again, this takes the familiar RAF shape of wings. Also renamed from something like “Senior Instructor Badge” to “Reserve Pilot (Air Experience”, which again makes sense. Wearers need a CQT on the Tutor with a QFI to qualify. Here is a picture I found on the 10 AEF Twitter page of a RAFVR(T) officer being presented with his badge (note the gold VRT lapel badges):
Finally, getting rid of the IA, FC and AT badges for a common one in the same way as the WSO/WSOp flying badge did, also makes sense.
No need to dabble now until we get our first astronauts???
BZ, I say.
Glider Pilot Regiment Pilot wings. At first all Glider Pilots were awarded the Army Flying Badge (top). From 1944 new pilots were initially trained as Second Pilots and awarded the Second Glider Pilot Badge (middle). Successful completion of a Heavy Glider Conversion Course qualified Second Pilots for the Army Flying Badge. This system operated until 1950 when glider training ceased. In 1946 a smaller pattern of the Army Flying Badge was adopted (bottom). (Source: https://juleswings.wordpress.com/201...p-carousel-378)
So I think the flying badge posted by Wensleydale for the “Reserve Pilot (Gliding)” is spot on. Different enough (blue laurel with a ‘G’) from the traditional RAF Pilot flying badge but close enough to look like it belongs on an RAF uniform. The previous was way too pongo!
The RAF ‘VR’ badge used by 500hrs+ AEF civil qualified Pilots has been around for a while now (first presented to OC 12 AEF at RAF Turnhouse, I believe, in the early 90s). Again, this takes the familiar RAF shape of wings. Also renamed from something like “Senior Instructor Badge” to “Reserve Pilot (Air Experience”, which again makes sense. Wearers need a CQT on the Tutor with a QFI to qualify. Here is a picture I found on the 10 AEF Twitter page of a RAFVR(T) officer being presented with his badge (note the gold VRT lapel badges):
Finally, getting rid of the IA, FC and AT badges for a common one in the same way as the WSO/WSOp flying badge did, also makes sense.
No need to dabble now until we get our first astronauts???
BZ, I say.
"Mildly" Eccentric Stardriver
Do I gather from this that civil pilots can now become AEF pilots? I flew Chipmunks (dates me) for the AEF, originally while still on regular service, and later after retirement. I was flying commercially at that stage, but it was a requirement that anyone flying for the AEF, as a VR(T) pilot, had to be, or have been, a qualified regular.
Do I gather from this that civil pilots can now become AEF pilots? I flew Chipmunks (dates me) for the AEF, originally while still on regular service, and later after retirement. I was flying commercially at that stage, but it was a requirement that anyone flying for the AEF, as a VR(T) pilot, had to be, or have been, a qualified regular.
Do I gather from this that civil pilots can now become AEF pilots? I flew Chipmunks (dates me) for the AEF, originally while still on regular service, and later after retirement. I was flying commercially at that stage, but it was a requirement that anyone flying for the AEF, as a VR(T) pilot, had to be, or have been, a qualified regular.
WB627 , they have been doing this for the past 28 years or more. Where have you been? Finding people with spare weekends these days becomes more and more of a struggle, as we become more and more time poor...
Finding people with spare weekends
Back to the gliding badges, I see they have annotated VGS Pilots/Instructors badges 'Reserve Pilot'. I thought (and probably wrongly as I have been pout of the loop for a while) that the AC officers were no longer VR(T) and were 'Air Cadet' branded now...why are they called Reserve Pilots....have the manning levels got that bad!
I'm not sure I ever got over the disappointment of when, as a stude on the UAS in 1978, I was told that the Navigator's Preliminary Flying Badge had been discontinued.
Jeez -this thread sounds like the "Blood Donor"
Hancock - " something small, of course, perhaps as badge ... with "HE GAVE THAT OTHERS MIGHT LIVE"........
Hancock - " something small, of course, perhaps as badge ... with "HE GAVE THAT OTHERS MIGHT LIVE"........
So have I got this right? An RPAS operator will now be awarded a full set of wings for completing 40 hours on the Tutor/Prefect followed by sim training in a portacabin?
Last edited by Vortex Hoop; 23rd Apr 2020 at 08:58.
But what about the Air Stewards?
