Fat loadies!
 

A few days ago I had the pleasure of visiting RAF Shawbury, it's always a pleasure to use the feeder, great food and a welcoming smile. I was dismayed to see so many overweight rear crew! Have they changed the medical criteria and increased the BMI for existing aircrew? Shawbury I assume is the first place the students get to see their future Peers, what sort of example is it setting to see clinically obese bosses?

Perhaps the fitness test needs to be done, say.. oh, twice a year?

Fat WSOps to you, you cheeky sod!:ok:

CG

Most of them are civvies, well the fat ones anyway :}

Well they're not loady'ing (sorry, WSOP'ing) in a microlight are they? I heard they take the loadies weight into account for the max all up weight on the Merlin..:} If you left one of the two behind you can carry an extra oil drum or six and a aircon pack.:E

A cheeky geezer indeed. You were the fat arsed front crewer that was seen scoffing our chocolate cakes? :E

The ones I saw weren't civvies and bursting out of there flying suits!

Obvious really... Defense cuts... They're making the flying suits an inch smaller to save money. :suspect:

The question or observation has still not been addressed, can anybody enlighten me to the possible reasons why clinically obese aircrew are still allowed to fly? It may just be that they are sent to outstations away from the frontline to graze, or are they grounded but just wearing flying suits! Top tip, under no circumstances allow them to be the ration key custodian.

Stones/glass houses springs to mind :ok:

It also really messes up the trim when they walk across the cabin, but it would be a brave man that told them ....

It sounds like Guidedweapons is trying to earn a promotion by advocating a Thrice-yearly Annual Fitness Test....

When do we get issued our tapeworms?

Agree with Bitberg7, plenty here walking about that look like they are trying to keep hold of their flying suits that they were issued back in the day.

Time to move up a size guys.

Twice now you've given us that diagnosis. I didn't realise that service medical care had been reduced because medical diagnoses could be obtained from some bloke in an aircrew feeder. Clinician are you? How about you leave it to Doctors to decide who is "clinically" anything?

The service can ill-afford to lose any experience these days. Squadrons of complex aircraft wholly manned by inexperienced people will become a far bigger safety threat to everyone when the guidance and wisdom of a few older but less 'gym-fit' hands is removed by the health and fitness Hitler Youth. This applies equally to air and ground crew. I predict that in future the RAF will have younger, fitter and more Army-like force that cannot achieve as much from it's older ac - because much of the experience has left amid the ever increasing BS driven by policies that are red herrings.

Fat WSOps
 

In some circumstances fat crewmen and crewgirls are what we have, we cant afford to lose them and their experience granted; that said, they are an eyesore and a blight on the service in the joint arena. It isnt just Shawbury though, there are even more of them at Lyneham and Brize - even 99 has its fair share at senior level and what about the fatigators that are abundant on the truckie fleets?:eek:

To their credit, they have the the experience and they have the enthusiasm to do the jobs in austere circumstances on the front line; there is just more of them to love. Students going through Shawbury know the difference between the civvy instructors and the mil ones - after all they arent supid - they are educated beings. Its just a shame they have let them selves go to such an extent, especially when they have a good gym at Shawbs and some fantastic running routes.

Got to agree with Brain Potter here. Perhaps a study of levels of fitness of various Air Forces versus human factor induced aviation incidents would be appropriate? Or a paper on the evolution of fitness testing as could be correlated against retention of experienced and talented aviators? It might be interesting simply to research the levels of, say, NAT structure violations by the apparently uber-fit, young and less experienced crews of the USAF AMC fleet compared to the knackered old pie-eaters of the RAF AT fleet, perhaps.

Misguided weapon - I see you are new.... Take some time to read a few posts. Although this is a rumour network, many of us like to back-up our rumours, thoughts and theories with facts, or at least accessible evidence. A sweeping generalization (yes, I did use a Z; I pronounced it 'Zee' too, in case you were wondering) suggesting Loadies are fat without giving at the very least the ratio of fatties to skinnies in the feeder, at the gym or in the pool, does not give the full picture. It is also unfair to Navigators.

Aye

Edited for spolling

Yes, perhaps you're right and there's nothing at all wrong with Lardys wondering around our RAF bases. Bums on seats are clearly the way ahead we will just have to make the seats bigger.........Much bigger! I do feel for the troops on the ground when being picked up and witnessing a sweating, huffing, puffing heafer who is unable to help with kit incase they suffer a cardiac arrest....................Experience is all!!

Miss-guided
You aparently seem to equate slim with brains and fat with incompedence. Would you like your bleeding injured grunt picked up in marginal conditions by a bloke/blokess who is straining their suit or would you like to leave them waiting for the good looking, slim, in-experienced young crews to pick them up in better conditions.
You also seem to be a clinician of great years so I was wondering what a medical officer was doing in the feeder. Did you conduct a medical exam in situ or did you ask if any of them had any medical conditions? Are you also able to see that all the people you have labeled are un fit or did you have them all off down the gym and conduct a fitness test?

You seem to be a very opinionated person with nothing but you opinions to back up your post. If your reason for posting was to get responses then you have succeded.

As for fitness V BMI I suggest that you take a bl00dy good look at the England front row. By the way one of the most fitest blokes I knew weighed 18 stone played for the RAF Vets at 40 had NO fat on his body and still strained his size 12 suit. Till he dropped dead a year later from a heart attack.

So as far as I'm concerned you are talking out of your rear end.
Read all the other posts about fitness and you'll find that a lot of people have opinions about fitness levels but experience will tell.

GW they won't give a toss about Aircrew wastelines as long as the kite turns up - trust me

It is not their fault, it's the girls in the Aircrew Feeder fattening them up for Christmas in a new money generating scheme. The expanding waistlines at Shawbury are not confined to Loadies, the 2-wing demi-gods are also getting a bit portly, widen your scan and you'll see what I mean. You were worried about the Christmas turkey lasting for ages, these will see you through till well past the daffodils!

I would not rush back for a second visit if I were you, for I dare say your manners leave a bad taste not unlike many cookhouses around the bazaars. Was it the quality of life, or the heavy wallets that really upset you? Perhaps it was the esteem to which the WSOps are held compared to ones own little privates.

Another Pongo v Crab* thread :ugh: Still light hearted humour that is easy on the palette I suppose. *A resonable assumption as Shawbury is similar to each and every SH Sqn in appearance. The SAR boys eat even more pies!

Trap one: "You aparently seem to equate slim with brains and fat with incompedence"

I am guessing by that liitle rant that you fall in the 'competent' side. I agree with most of the replies placed on this subject and I am by no means saying that all front seat crews are racing snakes, but surely we need to draw the line on such a highly visible trade. After all, they are Aircrew at the end of the day and if memory serves me correctly the medicals on entry where quite stringent so at what point do we allow people to literally let it go!
Fat does not equall experience. it equals eating too much and not excercising!

Conversely thin does not automatically mean competent

Oh crikey, let us not head down the whole fitness rabbit hole again. Don't judge too quickly by appearance, fit to do the job (ie passes all tests, meets all requirements) is enough, if they appear a bit lardy that is a lifestyle issue and I don't remember BMI being on any stat to assess one's ability to do one's job.

I feel this thread has lost its way slightly. I think it is a fair point raised by GW, perhaps not phrased in the best way though. I would also wholeheartedly agree that thin does not necessarily equal competent, and fat equal incompetent. The real argument as I see it is one of self discipline. There is a reason for required fitness levels across the military, and this includes obesity. I am afraid you do not need to be a trained clinician to spot obesity, and yes I will agree there are some very large people, who remain very fit. This however is more of an exception than the rule, and very few fall into this category. I am afraid to say that in general - if they look obese, they probably are, and I can say this as it is a field in which I am trained.
Good physical fitness is directly related to overall good health, physical and just as importantly - mental. Operational environments create a huge amount of stress on the body, due to a number of factors. Long working hours, night flying and irregular sleep patterns, as well as environmental conditions, all add put a great strain on the mind and body, affecting many systems, including the immune sysytem, nervous system, and digestive systems. The evidence is overwhelming and indisputible that good physical fitness is the best way to cope with this. This does not mean being a marathon runner, but simple, regular exercise, weight under control and a healthy diet - no excuses.
I will agree that experience is very important, and these experienced individuals will understand the need to be best prepared for the job in all ways - mentally as well as physically. Being overweight means you are far more prone to illness, stress related issues, injury and feeling the need to defend your size! Anyone can train and get fit. If they cant, then they should be downgraded and removed placed in rehab, as they present a liability and burden to their crew and operation.
I dont intend to preach and appreciate the experience argument, as well as the fact that this may be sometimes unachievable, but their must be targets and every attempt made to reach them.

Guided weapons. What is your issue. Can they pass a fitness test? Yes. Are they fit to do the job? Yes. Are the 2/3 guys you refer to pulling their weight (no pun intended)? Yes.

If you want to open a real can of worms then look around and see how many people in the whole of the RAF are overweight and well past their sell by date. Visit an Army barracks and you wont see the same. That is because they realise they are a fighting force and are fit for purpose. Sadly an unhealthy minority(?) of the RAF percieve their job to be Admin or Supply or whatever. With the pace and demands of current ops if your not fit to fight then you really are no use to the service. Too many times i have seen people deploy at short notice to replace some waster who has gone sick due to poor maintanence of his body!

To go back to my first line, the 2/3 guys to whom you refer have probably been on more op dets than they would care to remember. So don't judge books by covers ok?

Rant over. P.S Ant spelling mistakes are anger induced.

Ugly people are the only people who get wound up by fat folks. Truefact.

Thus GuidedbyWeapons has no doubt got a face like a bag of smashed crabs.

Wander round RAF Norfolk and there are plenty of Wedgewood Blue shirts at max tension and a WSO nicknamed after Japanese wrestling...top bloke though.:ok:

That maybe true but conversely how many extra shifts have Overweights picked up because of sports injuries and sports detachments.

Yet another 'Campaign Against Fitness' from the Royal Air Force........


:rolleyes:

I think you will find my reference was simply to regular exercise and a healthy diet, not specifically to playing sport. In fact I have advised people to avoid certain sports if they are in operationally critical roles, and are to be deployed in the near future. However if they are playing sports, at least they are more likley to have their injury prior to deployment as opposed to during a deployment. Again I have seen this first hand several times, where unfit individuals have been a burden to their detachment due to injury on ops as a direct result of their lack of physical condition. I have also seen more often than not, those who get sick, and more importantly stay sick for a longer period of time, are more often found to be overweight and in poor physical condition.

And how many fitness spods have dropped down dead for maintaining their "Phiz" routine whilst deployed in theatre.

2 whilst I have been in theatre. Oh, and I have had to cover at least 3 dets for fitties who have knackered themselves doing things as begnign as sit-ups.

Oh, and I have failed a fitness test before. So what. I provide the goods in theatre whilst those who break themselves just to look good in the mirror are sat at home in physio. :hmm:

Slightly OT but having enjoyed a splendid Landowners' Day at EGOS today, I didn't think anyone I saw was especially large. And Mr Alpha 55 is a top bloke . . .

VinRouge, typical salad dodger comment.

I dont think anyone is advocating that all should be gym queens or Daly Thompson phizz gods.

Just seems odd that you are defending being the Pilsbury Dough Boy or at best, a fat knacker.


And I think you're getting away from the origins of the topic;

Setting an example has nothing to do with spending 12 hours a day in the gym. It's a military thing but I don't suppose you'd understand that.

Let's just sort a couple of things out here.....
The only really fat aircrew are loadies OK?
Anyway, the army blokes are only 'slim' 'cos they're made to walk everywhere! The rest of us have real aircraft.

:oh: Attempts to outrun the incoming......

Trap one: "You aparently seem to equate slim with brains and fat with incompedence"
 

Mis-guided.
No to your quoting of my post, I don't. You apparently seem to assume a lot by looking, be it at people or posts. That was why I made that post.
I again ask you to respond to the allegation that you are a Medical officer and PTI, all rolled into 1.
If you read the rest of my post you will see that I gave you an example of a very good friend who stretched his size 12 (the biggest) flying suit and yet had an extremely low BMI. The same for the England Rugby team front row.
Whilst you seem to just jump in certain directions and assume that these people are "clinically obese" (your words) you fail to check that that is the case.
People are not perfect, someone who is fat could certainly be "fit". I could pass the Bleep test but not the cycle test as I had high blood pressure. My late friend also passed the bleep test, but died from a heart attack.
The fitness fatness argument has been exhausted on other threads, and it wont go away. My problem with your post and you is your apparent ability to decide instantly who is what, is that you fall into a very dangerous category.
In a war zone. Do you look at a clear sky and think lovely or do you check for clear air turbulence. Do you maintain lookout for SAM's/AAA, or because you see nothing do you fly normally? Do you look at a field and think lovely field of flowers or do you check for mines and trip wires. Do you set up a tent in the middle of an airfield and fail to dig a slit trench, because you assume nothing can reach you in the middle of the airfield.
If you do not ask/check and you are on your own then you are the only one killed if you get it wrong. If you have troops under your command, or rear crew down the back, they will get killed with you.
You I would refuse to fly with!!!

Wg,

As you are in the Army you will not understand the light blue way of life in the same way we are often bemused by the antics you mad pongo's get up to.

The fat knackers you and your colleagues so gleefully disparage will, almost certainly have passed their one and now two annual fitness tests so therefore they are "technically", fit despite not being pleasing on your rather critical eye.

The system sets a level of fitness we need to achieve which pretty much all of us attain with great ease and if some choose to see that as sufficient AND are still capable of carrying out their primary role then what is the problem :ok:

I'm guessing some of them must have defied the laws of physics if they truly have passed a fitness test. I'm sure that, like us you have the types who seem to 'go sick' just before a test and find ways out of actually doing it. Either that or they are paying the PTIs a few quid. :ok:

Its not my eyes that find them displeasing but as the opening poster suggests, it doesn't give the correct military impression to the young students.

Would you want an instructor looking like a total bag of ****e? Long hair, dirty flying suit, dirty boots?

And before some of you say 'if he can do his job, who cares' I think you may have missed the lesson whilst at Grantham Poly that advised 'lead by example'.

I only wish I had some stats regarding the Rotary WSOps that are broken, requiring a Fixed Wing crossover or Medical Discharge. For I know that there are, or at least have been, many, and those that I know about have been relatively young, active and fit individuals. One Martial Arts maestro is now sadly disabled for life and no longer in the RAF.

The point to which I am getting, is that most instructors are not the youth of today, but have survived physical aspects of the job for, in some cases, decades. Reoccuring injuries (particulary back) are commonplace, yet they get on with it without bitching. The Physio staff at Shawbury are never short of Aircrew customers, most of whome are youngsters.

To subscribe to Pprune just to start a thread such as this says a lot about the mindset and therefore mental state of the originator. In short he/she is a Troll and should be treated with the contempt that this deserves. No doubt he/she has also logged on with a secondary 'handle', especially for the purpose of this thread, and has probably contributed to his own thread under his original 'name'. A timely reminder perhaps that names are taken at meetings for the purpose of Minutes:

All this at a time when mutual respect across the wider SH / AH Fleet was at its highest ever.............. It is pathetic

I'm afraid the WG13 has this right - having been in for 25 plus years and kept myself the right side (just) of the fat boy bracket by doing Phys - some of the sights you see in a flying suits are frankly a disgrace. We are supposed to be a fighting force and expect the respect from others for that but it is a difficult claim to substantiate when guys turn up to work in spray-on flying kit.

Sadly our system allows guys to keep flying with 'fablon biff-chits' - fit to fly but unable to complete a fitness test for medical reasons.

It is worse at Shawbury because in a loadies operational job, there is a lot of humping and dumping that keeps them fitter (certainly fit for their job) but in LFA 9 they probably see 1 bergen a year.

I take GW's point that they set a poor example to new boys and girls as role models - unfortunately that poor example was being set back in the 80s and probably beyond.

As for the criticsm of GW's ability to assess obesity - you don't have to be a doctor to spot a fat b*st*rd:)