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& of course the Red Falcons Display Team

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Jebus, they've not amalgamated the display jump teams have they?

In colder days the primary raison d'etre for the MRT Force (ie 66 Hercs at £1M per) was the Para Brigade, and the explanation from the Army for the purpose of the Para Brigade was to fully exploit the existence of the MRT Force!!! Both of course would have been wiped from the face of the earth by any Migs that got through the Air Supremacy Battle above them if the big red telephone had rung, negating further debate on why either should survive the other. If the Tartan Army closes down the T.B. Exciting Expeditionary Tours package, that debate could re-emerge and not only PTI's would find themselves left out on a limb!

Hello,

I can think of valid reasons to continue the parachute training, but I'm partial to it and it has all been said before.

However, as a foreigner, I would like to point out the following.
There are large (ie non-SF) paratrooper units in Belgium, France, Germany and Italy. The list is obviously longer, but I limited it to the closest neighbours.
The Dutch Airmobile Brigade is not a "paratrooper unit", but a large number of their personnel have become airborne-qualified in recent years.

I have watched the BBC news in awe when there was footage of soldiers of the Parachute Regiment, some not even half my age, fighting for a goddamn irrigation ditch in Aghanistan like it was the bridge in Arnhem.
I find any talk of taking away their parachute training utterly disgusting!:yuk:

Best regards, Transall.

The drop into Sierra Leone was not tactically necessary, but an impressive bit of one-upmanship nonetheless. Suez probably was the last necessary operational insertion by this method so, politics, posturing and tradition aside I can see an argument for saving a large amount of cash by ceasing to train and maintain the PR (donning tin hat and flak jacket). More esoteric forms of parachuting remain essential military skills, and the interesting question that would remain following a decision to suspend parachute trg of infantry is what type of pre-employment trg is relevant to those about to utilise esoteric forms?

Non-combatant, aye right! Anybody flying an airframe somewhere unpleasant and then dropping a bunch of paras on the locals is taking more than a little bit of a risk as I'm certain the locals would regard them as combatants for the purposes of target selection.

The PJI's I've met over the year may have been slagged mercilessly, but they were professional to a man and they did what ever they could to make sure we stood the best chance of survival. As someone now involved in sports coaching I strongly believe that the RAF/PJI approach is correct for PTS and Para/PTI approach is correct for P Coy.

Keep the paras, ditch the PTI's. Simple.

They want us to all become PL's in the future, that looks like training your succesor to me!

While were at it, lets get all the PTI's and Regt out of the Survival School, and get some Aircrew back in there. There is nothing worse than some PTI teaching people how SE works, as if it's a frickin medicine ball