I'm desperately trying to avoid the temptation to troll here (and annoy the many good guys) but a couple of you are really asking to have your cages rattled. It may surprise Tourist and Talk Reaction but in the other services being on the ground does not automatically make you admin staff! I put your attitude down to cultural issues with your service because in the Army, if you are flying people around, you are generally thought of as being in a support role - not a combat role (regardless of whether the AAC are included as a combat arm or not).

Tourist you have obviously spent too much time in the mess with your mates telling each other how great you all are - the creme de la creme. Yes, training aircrew is expensive and takes a long time and not everyone has the aptitude. However, outside the cockpit your skills and abilities are less relied on. In many of the roles of the other services you are required to be far more of a jack of all trades but not less able or skilled. You have to be proficient in many technical and non-technical skill sets and generally be more versatile. If you sum it all up I think there are non-flying roles that require a greater level of over all ability. The handful of people i know who transferred units and successfully went on to rotary where far from being the highly talented people you are talking about - some were regarded as less able officers and not heading for a full career but are now in receipt of extra pay and a regular commission. Don't forget I've also been flown around by you guys (including the Merlin and Puma fleet extensively)and whilst many of you are very good at your jobs, some of you are suffering delusions of grandeur.

I hope you all keep your extra pay with no further reductions but for some of you please loose the arrogant and superior attitude that seems to go with it.

'A Lion does not concern himself with the opinions of the Sheep' - Lionel Spearman II

'Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand.' - Homer Simpson.

Pelikanpete

I would just point out that there is no such thing as an "Aircrew" branch in the RAF. ALL Aircrew are "General Duties Branch". To put it simply, you can place a GD Branch Officer in an Admin job - but you can't put an Admin Branch Officer in a Flying Post.

ArNot so caz; the gd(p) branch was turned into fly(p) at around the same time jpa came in to play. Wing commander aircrew and above are rebranched to general duties on promotion to that rank as far as I understand it.

Caz,

NCA are an 'aircrew' branch. Your statement was not entirely correct.

NCA
 

MGD - I think you will find that NCA is a trade or specialisation and that you serve on tours. Officers serve in a Branch, NCA dont, or has it changed that much in 13 years since I left it for a Branch Appointment

NCA is an aircrew branch, containing specific trades/specialisations such as Flight Eng/Crewman etc. Like everyone else, NCA serve on tours, but this is an admin related issue, as 99% of tours are flying tours, with postings often to the hangar next door.

My understanding is that most GD(P) don't have the aptitude for admin jobs... :E

Pelikanpete

I think you've missed the point entirely, it must be the rarefied air up on your pedestal.....

You are not concerned about lawyers or doctors or dentists being paid on a different scale to reflect their professional skills, yet aren't they also in the military???? I'm afraid in the modern world you can't hope to train and retain highly qualified staff if you pay them the same as relatively unqualified staff. That is why flying pay is substantial, the issue I raised is calling it an allowance which rightly gets the tax paying public's backs up, and they want it reduced or withdrawn if said chap is on a ground tour.

Think on this as well, you get promoted= more ground tours= less money= why get promoted???? Honestly not even Gerald Ratner would pay his most able managers less than his average ones and hope to keep them. Now, if you're as wise as you'd like to think you must be able to realize that if flying pay is substantially cut, there will be an exodus of experienced aircrew (as they're the ones who pull most of the ground tours) and that will permanently break the service.

A final thought (okay a 'rise') if you have such a downer on aircrew why are you reading an aircrew forum???

Military Aircrew A forum for the professionals who fly the non-civilian hardware, and the backroom boys and girls without whom nothing would leave the ground. Army, Navy and Airforces of the World, all equally welcome here.


:ugh:

I take your point, mine wasn't about exclusion. Just why would you be here just to have a downer on aircrew?? I think it that context it stands.

I don't have a downer on aircrew. Many of my mates are aircrew, my dad is an ex 13 Sqn pilot and I hold a CPL/IR myself. In fact I think the vast majority of aircrew from all three services are top guys. The problem I had was that a couple of you (I suspect young ones) are talking in a manner that I consider spoilt, arrogant and full of self importance and it irked me. Long may it continue that those of you with transferable skills are paid a retention bonus. A humbler attitude might be to consider yourselves lucky now and hopeful that it will continue. As long as there is sufficient demand for you in the civi sector fingers crossed it will. However, if it's not just for retention but is because you are all considered to be worth extra pay due to your amazing abilities or the danger of the role then there is an argument that many other roles should also get paid more.

Professionally qualified officers such as doctors, dentists etc. usually skip a few ranks to get extra pay because they turn up trained and qualified in their role and frequently have a good deal of experience already (and in most cases a fat student loan/debt). Since they have usually paid to train themselves (doctors and dentists initial training is for 5 years) it's hardly surprising that they get paid extra. Military aircrew join up unqualified and once trained many have experience and qualifications that are not always directly transferable to the civi sector. As for ground based administrators - surely you realise that they can also leave for better paid civi jobs and if in sufficient numbers that might also cause a serious problem for the services.

True - but it costs about £4.99 to train them.

And qualifications/experience on JPA are not exactly clamoured for outside...

I am in a ground branch (though for not much longer) and although initial training (13 weeks, IIRC) was probably money not well spent, over the years the CPD I have received will have cost the Exchequer a fat sum of money - staff college, fellowship, secondment - all costs money. As a result, coupled with a very varied range of appiontments here and abroad, as well as a suite of operational deployments, I can talk (and write) bolleaux about Air Power until the cows come home.

It is regret that the Wg Cdr GD Branch business was recently abolished. I was in a multi-disciplinary team in town a couple of years ago. There were 7 Wg Cdrs from different branches; only 2 were aircrew, yet between us we produced cogent arguments on the future of air power, on novel systesm etc, briefing at Chiefs of Staff and Ministerial level. HAving that ability to theorise about air power is not the same as having the hand/eye coordination to operate an aircraft or have the memory to recall the JPT at cruise (or whatever). Unfortuantely, with the huge desire to retain Flying Pay, many posts, in my opinion, have been re-rated 'flying related', excluding a large pool of talented, expereinced (but non-aircrew) officers from a range of policy posts at Command and in MB.

WP

But you can't spell. 4 Spelling mistakes.:ugh:

appiontments should be appointments.
systesm should be system.
Unfortuantely should be Unfortunately.
expereinced should be experienced.


Where else are you going to be? Does the RAF have flying administrators?

I guess a navigator could be classed as a flying administrator! :D

"with the huge desire to retain Flying Pay, many posts, in my opinion, have been re-rated 'flying related', excluding a large pool of talented, expereinced (but non-aircrew) officers from a range of policy posts at Command and in MB."

Can I just say, from the bottom of my heart.

Good.

So not all the changes are bad.

Flying administrator...


Nimrod MR2 AEO? (both of which no longer exist!)









Reference the comment about Flying related posts in MOD excluding talented non aircrew from these jobs....

1) Surely, even with the demise of several flying Sqns, there aren't enough senior officer aircrew to replace all the non flying branches in MOD posts (in the example quoted another 5 aircrew Wg Cdrs would have to be found for one commitee alone!)

2) Unless they are being made redundant, and their branches down sized, these talented non-aircrew senior officers still have to be found gainful employment somewhere....