Why Not Let Aircrew Run The Raf
 

Discuss?

It will never happen cos we would show up the adults..........
And they wouldn't like that:E
RR

Is that not where all the problems lie? Aircrew are in all the top jobs. Aircrew are born to fly, not always to lead. Who runs most Stns? If you take someone who has flown (single seat) for most of their career, they are proved not to be able to lead, but are led instead by those professionals below them, not always knowing what to do correctly- bit like Tony really. If a Stn need a manager, should someone with management experience run it- that would improve efficiency (and keep aircrew flying!!!).

Formula 1 teams are not managed by the drivers, M&S is not run by its checkout operators. The RAF sorely lacks good management theories as it tries to become more PLC.

SMT

The RAF is too top heavy with high ranking officers too interested in their own career, being yes men and not looking after their troops (which is after all what the majority are paid for)

It really gets my goat they way that the senior management of this 'company' are so out of touch with whats actually cracking off.

And then they wonder why people are voting with their feet
:confused:

The NHS is run by managers and not docs and nurseys. It's f**ked I am led to believe.

Silly, silly boy Phoney Tony. as pointed out by SMT the RAF is already run by aircrew (and has been since 1 Apr 1918).

They call the branch the "General Duties" branch - not the "Pilot" or "Aircrew" branch - for the very good reason that Trenchard wanted managers who had broad experience of the whole RAF to run the show. That broad experience had to encompass the flying side of things - seeing as how that was the business at hand - and not everyone could or would be involved in flying.

Unfortunately, with the advent of more complicated aeroplanes the aircrew felt that they had to have more stick time to keep on top of the beasts and, as a consequence, General Duties Branch postings such as OC GD Flt and OC Admin were given over to the 'blunty' branches. Then, before you knew it - oops! - matey becomes a gp capt and takes up post as a stn cdr. Unfortunately some in that position had bugger all between their ears in the man management and broader view of things. Fortunately, most of those chose to be guided by the professionals under them. Unfortunately that gave them the right 'scores in the doors' and they became elevated to exalted heights where their word was bowed to. Result - great heaps of smelly brown stuff where the pile has appeared to reach so high that those under them are walking off the job.

Answer (and please refer to other threads viz 'secondary duties' et al) - retain the GD branch but only for those who wish to partake of a full career; who wish to involve themselves with the wider aspects of service life; who don't bitch about Command and Staff courses; and who retain a passionate interest in flying but don't mind the odd ground tour where they can see how the majority of the Service works and lives. Then create an 'Aircrew' branch. Fill it full of NCO aircrew - you don't have to be an officer to fly - and those that have the talent and ambition to lead then send 'em to IOT and transfer them to the GD Branch.

Still, it'll never happen - too much vested interest at the top now.

Actually, M&S is run by a man who came up through the ranks and the reason they are underperforming is because the managers beneath him are pants. He is actually responsible for minimising the fall - just.

Are you sure? For the last couple of years it seems to have been run by accountants.

quote:

'the RAF is already run by aircrew'

hummm, not sure what Air Force you are talking about here, but aint HM finest!!

I regret that the Air Farce (and it is pretty much just that at the moment) is run by a bunch of faceless, spineless nurds who seem to regard flying, and everything to do with flying, as an interference to what they believe to be the real purpose of the RAF. Just exactly what that purpose is, I'm not sure.

Sadly the RAF is run by Blunties, Stackers, Movers, PTIs, Rocks and the likes, who feel it their duty to f*ck up anything to do with aircrew, flying and aviating in general. You will notice that I do NOT in any way include techie/engineer types, for whom I have the utmost respect and who are also way down the food chain in this Air Farce - just like the aircrew frankly!

Kind regards to all
TSM

A907,

What do you mean 'you don't have to be an officer to fly'?? How could a chap have even the slightest concept of flying if he's not ridden a horse.

Do get with the times old chap.

IS :E

Maybe we could farm it out as a PPI and get someone like MOL in to run it. He´d get costs and numbers down........ :E

Have to say that from the outside, it often looks like the Air Force isn't run by anybody at all!

Oh no! I find myself in agreement with Flap62 again :uhoh:

Having been involved in a major goat-****, I often have the feeling that if I could have sat down with someone with a brain, it could all have been avoided / fixed a long time ago.

Half the problem is the tendency for officers to run away from problems and just to do the minimum required by their little bit of the bureaucracy. Nobody sees the 'big picture' and the hotter the potato, the fewer want to even look for the big picture. If you can hire-in 'consultants' to take the difficult decisions for you, all the better. :(

Sadly, the route to promotion seems to be do nothing, therefore you can do nothing wrong.

There are many units around where the Staish is a bluntie (normally admin wahhah) and they don't seem any better. The CO is a figurehead for the unit and if all the respective managers/workers pull in the right direction it is a very successfull concept. The problem I see for the modern RAF is it is often very difficult to see which direction we should all be pulling and it is often seen that an opposing 'team' is pulling in the other direction. Just when you think you know where you are going they lean up your organisation and tell you its your fault you can't produce twice the widgets with half the manpower for half the cost in half the time.... Whinge over

PA

allen907

They already have. The GD Branch is manned by officers of Wg Cdr rank and above (excluding specialist branches: Medical, Dental, Legal, Music). The Flying Branch is manned by aircrew officers (including those not electing to enter the career stream) up to an including the rank of sqn ldr.

I read with interest as regular contributers complain about the 'blunties' in PMA when for aircrew their desk officer would be from the flying branch, his/her supervising officer would be GD Branch (though aircrew) as would the Deputy Director, Director, Air Sec, AMP/CINC PTC and CAS - not a 'blunty' in sight! I think contributers credit the 'blunties' for having far more influence than they actually have.

Swinging Monkey

which is to provide capability to component commanders (LAND/MARITIME/AMPHIB/AIR/SF/LOGS) for the prosecution of joint operations.

Blunites
 

I'm sure with their vast experience of COMAO planning and flying operations, a blunty officer would make a fine figurehead for an organisation that aims to deliver air power!
BV:rolleyes:

Ah, but Bob V, you are from a community that has provided the wider RAF with some superb senior officers, a series of impossibly great Staishs, and one in which even an outsider can discern many of tomorrow's best and brightest Air Rank blokes - if they stay in, and barring unforseen tragedies of the sort that have already deprived us of at least one 'future Air Marshal'.

And looking at the last AOC-in-C of No.1 Group, it seems that the Harrier Force is still producing some absolutely stunning senior officers too, and I'm not excluding the Tornado force, either.

The day the Army opt to fill the General Staff with blokes from the Logistics Corps, the Catering Corps, the RMP, and REME, and when the Admiralty deliberately promote only those officers who haven't spent their careers messing about in boats is the day that the RAF should dispense with officers with experience of leading in the air within its wider management/leadership structure.

This whingeing and whining is poorly directed, in my view. The RAF has one of its better CAS's at the moment, and a solid AOC-in-C Strike. The problems come because they don't run the RAF - the politicians and civil servants do. All that they can do is implement the policies and try to minimise the damage!

There are some dreadful, self-serving, ineffective, careerist senior officers, of course, but I'm not sure that they're any more common in the GD(P) branch as they are in any other branch, though I speak purely as an interested observer, and not as a 'sufferer'.

And some might say that the ground branches - like the ranks of aviation and defence journos - are swelled by large numbers of blokes who weren't good enough to be aircrew!

quote:

"Formula 1 teams are not managed by the drivers, M&S is not run by its checkout operators. The RAF sorely lacks good management theories as it tries to become more PLC"

I think you'll find a lot of F1 and MotoGP teams are indeed run by ex-drivers (Jackie Stewart, Nikki Lauda, Kenny Roberts, Carl Fogarty etc.). And checkout operators are not the equivalent of the aircrew......

Jacko, I'm sure the chap concerned will be utterly flattered that you feel that way. However, couldn't you have lent us a hand in the gay pride thread? ;)

Why is the Station CO a serving RAF Officer. Wouldn't it be cheaper to employ a civilian to run the Station?