What makes you certain there will be any UASs next year?

The Services still need graduate officers. They need to engage with potential officers before they graduate and a University unit is a good and economical proposition rather than trying to recruit them through adverts etc.

Collectively, yes. So is there potential for some purple unit instead?

Having new jnr officers with experience/practical knowledge of all the services, beyond that they get taught during IOT/equivalent would only be beneficial to the Service they then join...?

Motn, indeed that is a good idea. I started in the Army cadets and never forgot the field craft etc that I was taught. Our officers were all ex-military including Para and our mentors were the Border Regiment.

Purple OTC?
 

Schools with CCF sections have at least Army, often RAF and less commonly Royal Navy sections, with Royal Marines sections not unheard of.

No reason why URNU/OTC/UAS could not do the same, with a common first year, and then blue/green/light blue options for each of years two and three.

Who would ever wish to join such an organisation though?

The more I hear about the way things have changed at UASs, the more glad I am to have had my time as a regular RAF QFI whilst things were still good. We still gave students high standards of flying training and deployed to a Summer camp at another RAF aerodrome. No 'strength through joy' nonsense - and a good time was had by all. The students had a much more demanding syallabus than I'd know as a student in the early 1970s and it was a pleasure to have worked with them. But even in 1993, the end of the University Cadet programme was forecast - 'bursaries' and 'bounties' were worth a fraction of the generous pay scales we'd enjoyed as APOs immediately after the 'military salary' scheme had been introduced in 1970. Because I'd done a year as a Flt Cdt at RAFC before going to university, I was a substantive Plt Off in my final university year and was paid about 3 times the amount of money a civilian student on a maximum LEA grant received.

How did we ever let things slide to the current nadir? To be honest, there appears little worth saving......

We are broke enough to be selling the family silver, so how do you justify the cost of UASs, even if it is small..?

First of all, in terms of graduate recruitment. What proportion of graduates currently joining the RAF were never in a UAS? Presumably there is no evidence to suggest, especially after the new enhanced 30 week IOT, that these non-UAS graduates go on to be worse officers than their ex-UAS contempories. How many universities are actually covered by the current UASs?

I thought I had read somewhere that the RAF was looking to recruit a higher proportion of pilots at 18, to get more years out of them when they are fitter, have higher g- tolerance, better eyesight, etc.. Maybe that was boll*#ks though....

You could argue that people who want to join the military will find their own way into it without the UAS experience, and with a drastically reduced military the recruitment numbers required are much smaller anyway.

The same masses of students and young people who still grow up wishing to join the air force you so frequently bash and deride.

Yes, it's not the same as the one you went through.
No, we don't care.

Why should we care what you did? It has zero relevance to what we do.


Look no further than people of your generation in Government who decided to rape and pillage their way through the budgets over the years.

Good question, Miss PN was one of them. However the UAS 'captures' some undergrads who might otherwise 'escape' if they didn't go to a UAS.

Good question.

No, quite true. They are also more maleable (gullible) than a graduate.

True, but as I said earlier, UAS may capture high quality candidates that might otherwise go elsewhere.

It is just one of the options. Is it an economic one is a different question.

PN,

Thanks for at least taking the time to respond to my comments/questions!

They'd love to, but my guess is that many of the bright ones already plan to go to university.

Ms AA looked at the 18 y/o entry for the FAA (with in-service degree) but realised that if she got chopped/medic'd out she'd have to start all over again to get a degree, which would be tough, if perhaps you left aged 21. Far easier to go to university, and apply in the third year, or apply for a bursary in/before first year. Since she got 3 x A at A-level she had a wide choice of universities, too.

Hard to see why that was such a good idea in the big scheme of things. Not exactly VFM on that expenditure.

Mr C H, mmmm :)

The same was obviously considered true of flying instructional pay pre-90s until they realised it was a recruiting incentive to the willing who would possibly have paid to be trained :)

Certainly when I joined, pay was so low we needed that extra 6/- per day. :)

BEagle - in the 70s and early 80s the Services pissed money away.

I well remember GL (X) Midshipmites (Sub Lts in third year) being sent to do a three-year degree course at City University on lodging allowance for the entire time. They had more cash in their pockets than you could imagine, as they were on full pay too.

We live in straightened times, I'm sorry to say. I'm still certain that I had a higher disposable income as a 2nd year Mid with flying training pay (post '79 pay rise) than I have ever had since.

Yeah he's a top bloke, did my IOT grad a few years ago and he mentioned he enjoyed banging out of the odd harrier! As with the Asthma case I had an inhaler sporadically on my med records till the age of 15 and after alot of determination I forced my way to pilot, if you dont try you won't get!

Not a reason! UAS's provide the RAF with very few junior officers each year (typically 4/5 per UAS) and over half joined the UAS as bursars (i.e. were "in" before even arriving at the UAS).

The only benefit to the RAF I can see is the idea that the sort of people you currently find on a UAS are the sorts of people that, in time, may well end up as some of life's "high flyers". So a positive experience on a UAS for those people will leave a positive attitude and improved awareness of the forces among "tomorrow's leaders".

But how do you measure that? To me it's highly ambiguous and very questionable if it's worth ALL that money...

They all are, technically. It's just some you must travel further from to attend Town Nights, the airfield, etc. And some are simply so far away that it's basically impossible.

But a better question might be: what proportion of RAF officers were members of a UAS? I'd take a stab in the dark at about 50% or so. And I can think of at least four or five people who are now RAF aircrew officers purely because of joining the UAS I was a member of (i.e. no interest before joining), all of whom have done exceptionally well in flying training (that is, not just dross who couldn't find a job outside). The RAF has done exceptionally well in recruiting them.

(Full disclosure: I'm not one of them. I was a bursar.)

I'd have thought the £3-4k per person to 'snag' them and ensure they're committed to joining after graduation is peanuts overall.

Just my few pennies worth....

When I was an Air Cadet, back in the eighties, my CO told us that a study had shown, that pound for pound, the Cadets were much better value for money in recruiting future FJ pilots, than the UAS' were.

Admittedly, he had a case of jealousy towards the Bulldogs the UAS were using, while we were still using Chipmunks.

Anyone remember this study?

To play devils advocate, scrap the UAS and plough half the money saved into the Air Cadets. A boost for them, and may well help some youngsters in deprived areas make something of themselves.

Which is odd, because ask anyone who has flown both which they'd fly again now, and I can't see too many asking to fly 'Dog before the Chippie.

Ah, but the 'dogs' were shiny and new, we were still waiting for a Chippie replacement and he was not viewing with the benefit of nostalgic eyesight. I'd have to agree now though.

I think the real reason though was a bit of organisational rivalry over budgets.