Guys - not following this thread properly.

Can someone say when the VGS Grobs will be back in the air - thinking of the Little Rissington flight?

The official line is flying will resume September / October, but before any VGS gets going the CGS at Syerston will have to regain their currency. Therefore the cynics at the VGS reckon flying will restart next year possibly never.

JJ

Thanks for that. It does beg 2 questions:

1. If being refered to in flight, then why not put this SOP into the Flight Reference. Cards?

2. I seem to be back to square one. If being flown in a similar manner, on the same fuel and from the same airfield, why are the Vigis having more rough running incidents than the G109Bs when the only difference is the configuration of the fuel system? (that I'm aware of)

:confused:

LJ

LJ

1 - I would argue because FRCs are for checks, handling guidance is all in the aircrew manual. In my new job, my club 152 check list doesn't tell me when to apply carb heat for the descent for example, it's procedure that is taught.

2 - are they? Is the engine arising rate per hour any different Viggies clock up loads of hours

I was told by OC 2FTS - in May, admittedly - that Little Rissington would be among a handful of 'super' VGS to be the first to be back to full capacity once 2FTS chief instructors were. I'm afraid I can't remember the others (I remembered LR as it's relatively local but sadly not the most local.)

Don't get too hung up on carb icing incidents on the Vigi. Yes they still occur but no more (possibly less) often than in the GA world and as a rule they are handled more safely than the GA incidents.
The majority of the Vigi's engine troubles were not carb icing, rather they were ignition related with the mag doing odd things and the plugs growing wiskers, both issues now many years in the past.
BTW the later problem was solved by the Syerston techies trying different oils until the solution was reached by using oil with a picture of a Tractor on the label :eek:

Please could someone summarize the current and predicted flying opportunities for Air Cadets, i.e. whats serviceable and whats not.

My lad is soon to start, but won't be enrolled, (and therefore can't fly) until December(ish).

The squadron are still sticking to the party line of "loads and loads of flying", but I wonder what the reality will be?

Depends where the Sqn is, some units are lucky in being close to the AEFs and get plenty of oppertunities unlike us in NI when we get one trip a year to Woodvale and if the weather is bad it ends up as a shopping trip to Liverpool and that is it until the following year. Gliding, last I got from the Wing Gliding Officer was January so he may just be in luck.

AEF is moving along nicely; VGS is a dead loss and will be until early 2015 (at the earliest).

Some sqns are looking outside the box, looking at civilian opportunities for both. And occassionally sqns do get the opportunities of RAF multi-engine flights.

And of course there remains the opportunity to fly in Service aircraft.

This week a friendly RAF Merlin flew nearly 300 cadets at a nearby "green" camp. :ok:

Looking at around Oct 15 for a return to ops normal. Jan/Feb is when the VGS staff hope to start getting back into the swing of things. Plenty of SCT and standardisation to be done before then.

Cat

Define "ops normal"...

As I understand it, this is a small cadre of aircraft ready for Oct 14 at RAF Syerston to get a 'chosen few' current. Then the 'chosen few' will set up 5 regional airfields to train some more - this is probably going to take the rest of this year.

Then, once all the staff have had a bit of SCT, then each VGS will be stood up in turn by 2FTS staff. Now seeing that there are 2-dozen odd VGS then I don't share your confidence for Jan/Feb 15 for your "ops normal" even at this point. I would have thought that would be nearer Easter or maybe even later for the last on the list?

Not trying to be negative, but there's forward leaning and then there is a point where you fall over! :ok:

B Word

I'm afraid I may not have been as clear as I'd hoped. I didn't say Ops normal Jan/Feb. Jan/Feb is when most of us think we are going to be ready to start thinking about getting instructors and pilots back into the air and, if we get the same dog-toffee winter we had this year, we won't be getting much done even then.

I actually said Oct 15. Even OC 2FTS's own assessment puts us into the latter half of 2015 before all 25 Sqns are carrying out the full range of activities (GIC/GS/AGT etc.) again. I'm just adding a couple of months on as a bit of a fudge factor, bearing in mind that most of the dates we've been given seemed to have slipped to the right over the past few months, so I don't think its a completely unreasonable assumption, I hope you'll agree.

Bear in mind that they've only just finished inspecting the 5 Vigilant and 5 Viking airframes to finish establishing the scale of the problems involved in returning the fleets to an airworthy state. So Syerston will just now be getting some sort of picture of how long it will take to get things back in order. Bear in mind, as they troll through the fleet, there's a fairly good chance that other unforeseen problems will spring up, and let's not forget the giant engineering backlogs at Syerston that existed even before all this blew up. (Even before this saga, there was a giant queue to get airframes into the rather temperamental GRP bay, which appears to be to engineering what Abu Hamza is to proctology.)

From the latest update I've seen (which, as ever, was annoyingly devoid of real detail, given that at some point OC 2FTS is presumably going to ask us unpaid volunteers to get back in these things and train people's kids) they're still optimistic that they can get flying underway at Syerston by October, but the big problem is bringing squadrons back up to speed. Even if the engineering goes to plan, the unofficial numbers I've heard thrown about crewrooms involves 1hr of SCT for every month off to regain proficiency- and we only usually operate two days a week. Then you have to throw in all the standardisation checks, category renewals and, in all probability, training everyone on a completely new set of engineering processes, procedures and standards. It's going to take a while. I just hope not too many more people are going to vote with their feet.

There seems to be a tranche of money which has been made available for Air Cadets to fly with RAFGSA clubs (maybe BGA clubs too?). The Kestrel Gliding Club at Odiham has certainly flow a fair number of cadets over the summer, which has resulted in up to a 50% increase in the number of launches per day.

A parent/guardian signature is required on the club's paperwork for under 18 year olds, so cadets will be disappointed if they just turn up on the day without making contact in advance.

Cat, my apologies, I was confused by Oct 15! D'oh! :ugh:

Now new medical paperwork for AEF and gliding has appeared, admin nightmare :ugh:

Hi all, haven't been on here as busy working the summer weathers been great for us poor pay civvy FIs! How are the glider boys and girls getting on now? Hopefully ok back to speed it's such a shame they lost a good summer!

Jimmy

Bad news, I'm afraid. Cadets unlikely to start flying for some time yet. I understand, on the grapevine, that the planned introduction of a few examples to kick-start a return to flight program has been delayed. I don't know the full story, or have an idea of what the delay is, though. :confused:

Got to feel sad for the VGS staff. :(

The good news for some Cadets is that Tutor AEFs have made up partially for the VGS shortfall following their Grobs being off-line for a while last year and that some lucky Cadets have been given gliding scholarships with gliding clubs.

LJ :ok:

Best case scenario still doesn't have full operation inc gliding scholarships until summer 2015.

I'm the Chairman of one of the oldest civilian gliding clubs on an active RAF airfield (not far from Oxfordshire's most secret airfield) and we've come to an arrangement with one of the local ATC squadrons where we are offering some of their cadets the chance to fly with us. Hopefully other civvie gliding clubs will follow suit.