PAG
To answer a few of your questions.... and I don't have an ATPL or a PPL but I do have well over 5000 hours. Does that count?

Yes "these civvies" are insured. Any civilian flying on a military aircraft has to be authorised, usually by the Stn Cdr, Group or Command, and is therefore on "duty" and therefore insured.

There is no cost to the tax payer. These sorties need to be flown for currency, currency that still continues after you PVR and before you exit the Service. All that happens is that a crew/pilot currency requirement is flown on a planned sortie that just happens to have a CAA IRE as a passenger. He observes what the pilots do and decides whether they have met the requirement for a civilian IRT.

As a reasonable argument I would simply counter with "why shouldn't it be done?". I know (please excuse the term) blunties who have got civilian qualifications as part of their career development within the RAF. Accountancy exams? ECDL perhaps? MAs? MBAs? Lots of these are paid for by the Military, and lots of people leave just after getting them. Resettlement is available to all and quite rightly so - but it can only be based around your current military qualifications. Remember the fuss not long ago about an SACW (IIRC) deciding she wanted to use her resettlement doing a pole dancing course? The "red top" papers made a huge fuss and the MOD said it was her choice to use her resettlement getting training in her new chosen career. End of story.

Obviously you cannot use an RAF aircraft to get more qualifications - for a number of reasons!! Firstly you are not RAF aircrew. Secondly you are not qualified on any military type. Therefore you cannot use a military aircraft to improve your flying qualifications. And sadly for you having a PPL does not make you more qualified - having 5000+ military hours means that I have quite a few exemptions towards an ATPL and an awful lot more (flying) experience. Likewise you should have more experience than I in your chosen profession.

This is a non-story and you do yourself and your colleagues a huge disservice by trying to make something of it. Hopefully you will see no "Me, me, me" in my reply and no need to "grow up" either. Unfortunately I think that you might need to!!

Umm, don't suppose there's any pics are there;)

Ginger Whinger,

Perhaps we should turn this around - why don't you try and explain why YOU think it should NOT happen?

As has been said before, Civ IRTs are flown on training sorties that already exist. They simply have a (correctly authorised) Civ IRE on board observing the sortie. By correctly authorised, I mean that a formal request for a civilian passenger has been submitted in advance and permission has been granted, in writing, by the appropriate authority. They are not put on specially just for the purpose of gaining a Civ IRT to 'open' your newly-gained ATPL, the sortie would have gone ahead anyway regardless of whether a Civ IRE was on board or not. The cost to MoD is ZERO. The individual pays the examiner his fee (several hundred pounds) out of their own pocket.

Now, please explain to us again how this is:
Over to you....

LOL, I meant a picture of the pole of course......

Not seen you at Bisley recently Mike.

sad to see that in our small community such bitterness still exists :(, I'm sure if you ask nicely the crew would have no problems taking you flying and probably teach you a lot, I am a ground trade, and I too hold a PPL but recognise 75hrs in a warrior and 150 hardly give me the same level as skill or expertise as RAF pilots with 1000's of hours flying, of all types that civvy pilots could only DREAM of.... When was the last time you saw civvy pilots flying at 200KTS (IAS :}) at 250ft for miles and miles, then throwing a load of meatbombs/ crates/ MSP's out the back, then going for a spot of inflight refueling??????- If you talk to them nicely you will struggle to find a bunch of people more enthusiastic and willing to help you learn, as it is beneficial to everyone....

Get a life, use the vast amount of help and resources around you to better yourself, and stop trying to erode the last few perks we have left as service personell... :ugh:

I did my last RAF IRT with the RAF IRE (BEagle actually!) sitting in the right hand seat and the CAA IRE sitting in the jump seat. Don't see any misappropriation there.

They both passed me as well!

Snap. I did my military IRT with a military IRE and civvie IRE on the jump seat. I had to do my IRT so that I could legally fly for another year, the civvie IRE had a good day out, I gained a very appropriate qualifaction and it cost the only cost to the RAF were the hours that I would have had to have flown anyway. I then stayed for another 3 years. Misappropriation? Not at all; there is more misappropriation in the pens that you probably take home.

Ahh, didn't know you had to enable PMs. Tis done. Must have just missed you as I made the photo this year.

Not as though it is new is it?

I remember talking to ex RN/FAA pilots who, having announced their intention to leave the service, were posted to a Devon(?) squadron for communication flight duties and once they had got the hang of it they contacted Stansted and arranged an IR test.
They only paid the exam fee.

That was happening back in 1970/71, to my certain knowledge.

Mind you, do any of you remember the good old days?

Put in your PVR and you were immediately grounded and posted to an Ops job or Flt Sim? Flying hours were scarce, they said, so they did not want to waste them on people who were leaving.

For real misappropriation you have to go all the way back to 1973 when I left the mob. The procedure was well rehearsed, straight down to the labour and sign on as a would be Airline Pilot under the Training Opportunities Scheme (TOPS). Muggins clocks in at the Swindon branch to be told that the scheme, which should have coughed up for the cost of his Civil Instrument Rating Course at Kidlington has been suspended as it has (amazingly) run out of money and I will have to pay for it all myself! Turn up at Kidlington to be told course now costs 15% more due to commencement of VAT, but not to worry as they are applying for exemption as an "Educational Establishment". Never saw the 15% again either. The Lord taketh with one hand and then the other!

Ginger Whinger, if you hold a PPL, then refer yourself to LASORS D3.3 et seq. This will explain the work achieved by the CAA/MoD joint working group regarding accreditation.





Either that - or $od off. Your call!

PAG,
You asked if other trades are denied the facility of demonstrating their skills, to a civvie, using RAF equipment. The answer is no, they are not denied such resources, provided that the civilian examiner poses no security risk, or does not cost the RAF any money. As others have already indicated, the CAA examiner does not pose a threat, he has been cleared on the station and auth'd to fly as pax on a properly scheduled training flight.

There are many cases of civilian examiners awarding grades (or monitoring) Service personnel, of all trades, in their daily jobs. For example, if a chef, about to leave the RAF, wanted to invite a civvie catering instructor/examiner into the JR's restaurant kitchen to prove his skill and get a certifcate then, in principle, he can provided he doesn't get in the way, etc. The fact that it doesn't happen is not the issue.

Hope this helps.

Regards
Kev

Nothing wrong with a few perks, so long as they are available to all and the rules are applied fairly.

I remember being a little p’d off after flying down the back making the teas on a few of these Mighty Hunter CAA IRT’s, only to be told later that I could not use my resettlement allowance to do my own ATPL tech exams due to the fact that I wasn’t an RAF pilot.

Fortunately, we had an excellent education Officer :)at the time and she too could not understand the logic behind this discriminatory clause, but found a way of working the system. The argument she used at the time was that I already had a CPL and therefore on paper, I was technically more qualified for the “Civilian Career” than the pilots who had been going through the system at the same time who hadn’t yet started their exams. It worked.

It was wrong to have a discriminatory clause in the rules which effectively said that unless your were a service pilot, you could not use your resettlement allowances to train to be a pilot. I doubt that the same rules would have prevented a pilot from using their allowance to take an engineering or administration orientated resettlement course. Maybe things have changed. This was back in the 80’s.

What's the fuss
 

Seeing this is my first post I might as well jump in the deep end.

As a humble (ex) stacker I can't see what the problem is. Since leaving the service I have put my publicly funded skills to good use by utilising them to earn the money to help pay my daughter's university fees.

As long as the proper authorisation is obtained and due propriety is maintained, does it really matter what one particular person does to enhance their employment prospects in civilian life?

The system is there to be worked (legitimately) so what is wrong if someone applies the rules in an imaginative and flexible manner.

Things have now changed and ELC as it is now called can be used for most types of career training.

As a civilian I see the use of service aircraft for an IRT as part of the remuneration package for service personal and part of the recompence for service undar conditions that most civilians can't understand.

Resettlement is a duty of the forces and it is moraly right that all service personel get the help and suport to make a living in civilian life after the military career comes to an end. the people who are saying that this flying for an IRT is the misuse of military resorces are totaly wrong it is in fact part of the "contract" for military service and the entitelment just as a pension is after years of service with a civilian company.

@ biddedout

Was she a Sqn Ldr at St. Mawgan? 81-82 ish? She helped me a lot as well.

Military pilots sometimes have to operate into major civilian airports. They do not have to have passed the Air Law exam of the country in which they are flying, and there are some differences between military and civilian flying regulations. Therefore, occasionally carrying a CAA IRE on sorties is a useful standardisation check of the suitability of military regulations and SOPs for safe operation in civilian controlled airspace. This was the basis on which my Group Captain a few years ago accepted liability on behalf of the Crown for a CAA IRE flying on the jump seat during my military IRT.

PAG, why remain silent and be thought of as a fool ...............

As opposed to not remaining silent and possibly proving........

I thing the Ginger Whinger has been put well and truly back in his box!
Hear that? Yes, silence......
A little knowledge can often be a dangerous thing, old chap.