Where do RAF pilots come from now?
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Having spent some time at Lyneham, I cannot for the life of me remember a ‘Scottish poison dwarf’ on the OCU but then again I am getting very old !
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I do. I was a crossover and on the OCU in 92. First initial - J.
First met at ELUAS where fellow studies loved winding him up leading to the “I’m I/C in charge here” rant.
Me
First met at ELUAS where fellow studies loved winding him up leading to the “I’m I/C in charge here” rant.
Me
Where do RAF pilots from now
Not sure if the thread opening question has been answered and I might have caused a drift by asking about "cremiers" although you lot seem to refer to them as "Creamies". Really interesting responses though and glad to see balance offered in the creamies debate.
The term suggests that these were really super bods with advanced skills in order to be 'creamed'. Glad to see that it is not the case. Indeed, on the Civil path to professional status, sometimes, the only route is through professional instruction. With a PPL, one would next progress to Assistant Flying Instructor at some grass field. It started the path on my disliked phrase "Self Improver".
My point is that you would have Instructors with around 100hrs total themselves.
I note that RAF Creamies would have around 400.
Civil aviation is littered with the wrong types illustrated by many on this thread. I'll offer as observation with my infamous humour;
My Airline ,at one point, had no idea how to "Train" but relished in "Testing" and enjoyed "Chopping" and destroying. Most, so-called "Instructors" were ex-mill and I often wondered if they were "Creamies". However, I was acting LHS for new joiner who decided in a coffee break where other individuals from the Training Department were present to, er, brown-nose,a bit. He went on & on about how good the training was and how good the trainers were. I responded;
"Mate. 'Training'-? Have you noticed all 'Trainers ' in this company look exactly the same ? They all have hunched up shoulders and swept back foreheads. There is a reason. If you ask them a question, they hunch up their shoulders. When you tell them the answer, they smack their own foreheads.
Went a bit quiet and I had a very hard annual Line Check some months later.
The term suggests that these were really super bods with advanced skills in order to be 'creamed'. Glad to see that it is not the case. Indeed, on the Civil path to professional status, sometimes, the only route is through professional instruction. With a PPL, one would next progress to Assistant Flying Instructor at some grass field. It started the path on my disliked phrase "Self Improver".
My point is that you would have Instructors with around 100hrs total themselves.
I note that RAF Creamies would have around 400.
Civil aviation is littered with the wrong types illustrated by many on this thread. I'll offer as observation with my infamous humour;
My Airline ,at one point, had no idea how to "Train" but relished in "Testing" and enjoyed "Chopping" and destroying. Most, so-called "Instructors" were ex-mill and I often wondered if they were "Creamies". However, I was acting LHS for new joiner who decided in a coffee break where other individuals from the Training Department were present to, er, brown-nose,a bit. He went on & on about how good the training was and how good the trainers were. I responded;
"Mate. 'Training'-? Have you noticed all 'Trainers ' in this company look exactly the same ? They all have hunched up shoulders and swept back foreheads. There is a reason. If you ask them a question, they hunch up their shoulders. When you tell them the answer, they smack their own foreheads.
Went a bit quiet and I had a very hard annual Line Check some months later.
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Concur with this assessment of Ljnr. Aged 17 and awarded a RAF Flying Scholarship at Roborough I spent the Easter holiday striving for a PPL but the discouraging attitude and general mismanagement of the son and father meant the course was never finished in the four weeks, and I really couldn’t be bothered to return - not that I recall they made any effort to get me back. Be interesting to learn how many scholarships they were awarded and how many they successfully passed
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Concur with this assessment of Ljnr. Aged 17 and awarded a RAF Flying Scholarship at Roborough I spent the Easter holiday striving for a PPL but the discouraging attitude and general mismanagement of the son and father meant the course was never finished in the four weeks, and I really couldn’t be bothered to return - not that I recall they made any effort to get me back. Be interesting to learn how many scholarships they were awarded and how many they successfully passed
The dreaded 3 Dayglo stripes on T8191!
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Join Date: Mar 2010
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My Log Book suggests that BB694 was L Snr’s aircraft, in which I did my No Progress tests!
NO - not him, the George B who I knew was an excellent instructor! He was the only one who could clearly explain the vagaries of the ADF needle and how my tracking could improve.... which he imparted with great aplomb over a beer and few fags - this nugget of info helped my academic flying no end and probably saved me a few years later, when doing a missed approach from Bardufoss (or somewhere similarly cold), which invloved tracking 2 NDBs up a steep sided-valley well-below SAlt in poor weather (without GPS in those days) and us watching the radalt out the corner of one eye with a lump in the throat.
However, there was another 'short scot' QFI around on the OCU - whom I feel lucky to have avoided flying with...so I can't comment directly - but certainly, his bad rep preceded him......Ken and Me (above) have the right idea as to identity. Glad to hear he may have mellowed.
As for Creamies - I flew with a few - both on the JP and in the Hawk. I cant think of a bad one. In fact, they were pretty good at the 'soft-side' of things, as they had been through the same mill/sausage-machine fairly recently and could relate to idiots like me having problems with High Technical Merit things at certain times. They were probably better than a lot of QWIs at the TWUs, (who had not been to CFS to learn how to impart knowledge) and who often reverted to the 'I can do it, why can't you?' ...or 'just fly better, man' approaches.
Once upon a time someone said
"There are no such things as a bad students, just bad instructors!"
or alternatively,
"You can teach monkeys to fly"
(of which I am an example)
F
However, there was another 'short scot' QFI around on the OCU - whom I feel lucky to have avoided flying with...so I can't comment directly - but certainly, his bad rep preceded him......Ken and Me (above) have the right idea as to identity. Glad to hear he may have mellowed.
As for Creamies - I flew with a few - both on the JP and in the Hawk. I cant think of a bad one. In fact, they were pretty good at the 'soft-side' of things, as they had been through the same mill/sausage-machine fairly recently and could relate to idiots like me having problems with High Technical Merit things at certain times. They were probably better than a lot of QWIs at the TWUs, (who had not been to CFS to learn how to impart knowledge) and who often reverted to the 'I can do it, why can't you?' ...or 'just fly better, man' approaches.
Once upon a time someone said
"There are no such things as a bad students, just bad instructors!"
or alternatively,
"You can teach monkeys to fly"
(of which I am an example)
F
Last edited by Flipster130; 4th Dec 2023 at 14:06.
Avoid imitations
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'I can do it, why can't you?' ...or 'just fly better, man' approaches
I suffered one ex RAF instructor whilst qualifying for my CPL(A). I’d not flown a fixed wing for some years, but I was an ex RAF QFI and QHI myself, at that time fully current on rotary. I felt I needed to be given a few nuggets of help and left to get on with with it, at least to begin with, unless I was doing something blatantly wrong or dangerous. Instead, this instructor nagged constantly, even before takeoff, to the point that I could no longer concentrate. During one debrief I asked him to desist with the constant chat while I was flying, obviously unless he thought I was going to kill us, but he just couldn’t shut up. On a subsequent flight I eventually asked him to take control because I’d had enough. He got surprisingly aggressive, insisting I carried on flying. I landed, shut the aircraft down and told him that his methods of “instruction” might have been deemed acceptable thirty years ago at RAF BFTS, but not when I was paying at a civilian flying school, and walked away from him. I went to the chief instructor and told him that there was no way I was going to pay any more to fly with this chap, and I didn’t.
Problem was, it should have been: “I can do it, I’ve shown yer, why can’t you do it?”
I suffered one ex RAF instructor whilst qualifying for my CPL(A). I’d not flown a fixed wing for some years, but I was an ex RAF QFI and QHI myself, at that time fully current on rotary. I felt I needed to be given a few nuggets of help and left to get on with with it, at least to begin with, unless I was doing something blatantly wrong or dangerous. Instead, this instructor nagged constantly, even before takeoff, to the point that I could no longer concentrate. During one debrief I asked him to desist with the constant chat while I was flying, obviously unless he thought I was going to kill us, but he just couldn’t shut up. On a subsequent flight I eventually asked him to take control because I’d had enough. He got surprisingly aggressive, insisting I carried on flying. I landed, shut the aircraft down and told him that his methods of “instruction” might have been deemed acceptable thirty years ago at RAF BFTS, but not when I was paying at a civilian flying school, and walked away from him. I went to the chief instructor and told him that there was no way I was going to pay any more to fly with this chap, and I didn’t.
I suffered one ex RAF instructor whilst qualifying for my CPL(A). I’d not flown a fixed wing for some years, but I was an ex RAF QFI and QHI myself, at that time fully current on rotary. I felt I needed to be given a few nuggets of help and left to get on with with it, at least to begin with, unless I was doing something blatantly wrong or dangerous. Instead, this instructor nagged constantly, even before takeoff, to the point that I could no longer concentrate. During one debrief I asked him to desist with the constant chat while I was flying, obviously unless he thought I was going to kill us, but he just couldn’t shut up. On a subsequent flight I eventually asked him to take control because I’d had enough. He got surprisingly aggressive, insisting I carried on flying. I landed, shut the aircraft down and told him that his methods of “instruction” might have been deemed acceptable thirty years ago at RAF BFTS, but not when I was paying at a civilian flying school, and walked away from him. I went to the chief instructor and told him that there was no way I was going to pay any more to fly with this chap, and I didn’t.
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Actually I think people are recruited for pilot or UAV separately although no doubt there is some crossover (and I knew plenty of pilots who did tours on UAVs). The medical requirements are the same for both branches which I always thought was a bit perverse as why would anyone choose to sit in a box on the ground when they could actually fly unless they had a medical issue?
111
I would have to double check but I don’t believe that to be the case. People join the RAF to be a UAS pilot. I don’t believe it is a streaming option. There could be different medical standards for instance.
It would need someone more current than me to confirm that though.
BV
It would need someone more current than me to confirm that though.
BV
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I would have to double check but I don’t believe that to be the case. People join the RAF to be a UAS pilot. I don’t believe it is a streaming option. There could be different medical standards for instance.
It would need someone more current than me to confirm that though.
BV
It would need someone more current than me to confirm that though.
BV
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I would have to double check but I don’t believe that to be the case. People join the RAF to be a UAS pilot. I don’t believe it is a streaming option. There could be different medical standards for instance.
It would need someone more current than me to confirm that though.
BV
It would need someone more current than me to confirm that though.
BV
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Actually I think people are recruited for pilot or UAV separately although no doubt there is some crossover (and I knew plenty of pilots who did tours on UAVs). The medical requirements are the same for both branches which I always thought was a bit perverse as why would anyone choose to sit in a box on the ground when they could actually fly unless they had a medical issue?
I’m in the same boat at the same time - cannot for the life of me think on an HCS Instructor that fits the bill - there were some great guys such as George Dunn and the legendary George Brown but a Scottish poison dwarf ?
I would have to double check but I don’t believe that to be the case. People join the RAF to be a UAS pilot. I don’t believe it is a streaming option. There could be different medical standards for instance.
It would need someone more current than me to confirm that though.
BV
It would need someone more current than me to confirm that though.
BV