NAAFI;
Many years ago I was told it stood for 'No Ambition, and F*** all Interest...'

One other comment on the 'no risk' comment earlier. Getting the cadets to their units involves either a car, or bus. Now there's a real 'no risk' scenario.....

There doesn't seem to be any real desire by the RAF to keep the Air Cadets going :bored:

No compensation for Volunteers!
 

Well they really shafted the Volunteer Gliding Instructors during the "Pause!" I remember a question being asked in the House about the cost of the "pause" and the response being along the lines of 'the majority of our gliding instructors are volunteers so no costs involved with standing them down!'

It is little wonder that fewer volunteers are stepping up when they have been treated like this in the past!

Along with Pobjoy and others, the best years of our lives (and probably the Air Cadets)!

Having rammed the good ship Air Cadets into an iceberg, the commandant has, today, announced his resignation from the organisation and the RAF.

One of the biggest gripes from the volunteers is a complete lack of decent comms from HQ.

Special K as he is widely known in the organisation, announced his resignation not on sharepoint, or an all staff email, or an IBN, but instead…….on LinkedIn!

The AC organisation (?) has spent a lot of money in my art of the world, improving unit faciities of late. That includes a big renovation of wing HQ.
Asturias, you may well be right!

It was a wonderful organisation. 70 years ago last week I did my A and B at 105 GS Cambridge.
By 16 1/2 could fly, drive (Bedford 15cwt double declutching), drive a winch, mend a cable. Stood me in good stead until I quit flying 18 months ago as I was finding after a couple of hours in an LS4 the old body was getting a bit uncomfortable.
All those volunteer instuctors from all sorts of backgrounds who got so many of us started. CFI was a boring old fart bank manager but I still remember him in a T21 doing 8 loops on a hangar flight.

I was a staff cadet 1964 - 1970 and gliding was my 'stimulus' to start an aviaton career; I joined National Air Traffic Control Service (NATS nowadays) after school and this led me to a 49 year career which I may not even have considered without my voluntary Air Cadet gliding experience.
The efficiency and camaraderie of volunteering in the gliding organisation (I was still of course a member of my squadron) meant that it was easy for me to integrate as an Air Traffic Controller plus part of the training gave me a PPL and later experience allowed me to fly in several diverse types (Wessex, Puma) which are normally not available to civil pilots.

OK - my PPRuNe name gives the preflight checklist at the time.
CISTRS...
Controls
Instruments
Spoilers
Trim
Release
Straps

Who remembers the checklist for the retrieve motor vehicles?
POWER...

Petrol, Oil, Water, Electrics (I think was originally electrolyte when you had to top the batteries up!) & Rubber!

I amended ours to 'Flower' checks when they went over to diesel:

Fuel, Litter, Oil, Water, Electrics & Rubber

...And then of course the 'Eagle' winch equipment check list:

FFAAGG..

I can remember being asked to help out with starting a 'new' VGS at Gaydon in about 1966; I was at 613 (Halton) at that time and I declined because it would have been too far to travel and I was still at school studying for 'A levels. This VGS was of course 637 but whether it had a 'history' prior to 1966 I don't know.
612 VGS had a 'history' and the most recent details I am aware of were that it was formed from HQAC gliding flight at White Waltham (after HQAC moved to Brampton and the RAF relinquished control of White Waltham airfield) ln the '70s having been operated as a detached flight of 613 Halton then it was re-numbered and moved to RAF Benson in about 1980 and re-equipped with Ventures. It did exist prior to this but when this was I don't know; in any case it didn't exist continually as had 621. Subsequently when RAF Abingdon closed and all flying transferred to Benson, 612 was temporarily 'boltholed' to operate alongside 613 at Halton until new facilies were in place at Abingdon.

OC 613 (Jacko) was very hot on ensuring the winch was left in the coirrect state; he would ask 'if you checked the oil level one morning and discovered it was excessive, what would you do?'
Well the 2 drum winch had gravity petrol feed to the engine and if you left the fuel cock on overnight, you risked having petrol seep into the engine thus increasing the oil level.

Tried wiki; yes I know it's not always accurate.
It shows 612 as forming at Martlesham Heath (Suffolk) in 1955 and disbanding there in 1963, then re-formng at White Waltham in Dec 1978.
Unusually there is nothing listed for 637 prior to 1966.
Shown on wiki as 'List of Royal Air Force glider units' but there are some errors I have spotted.

Some years back (probably 20+ years by now!!) there was a booklet produced (A4 sized and fairly thick!) with all the VGS's and their histories ..... Not sure where my copy went ...but somebody may still have one somewhere!

I think I have one at home...I'll check when I'm back next week. Otherwise I'd have given chapter and verse on the histories. Unfortunately I'm 10,000km away!

Never heard of that; I'd love to get to see a copy.
I was 'terminated' as a Wing Gliding Liaison Officer in 1998 so I kind of lost touch with things.(I was too successful - I got to go to Buckingham Palace for Royal Garden Party and my wingco didn't and he didn't like it)

Perhaps if you’re talking about a gliding school specifically?

East Midlands UAS was formed at Newton in 1941 (as Nottingham UAS) and remained there until the base closed in 2000, before moving to Cranwell. I can’t think of any other unit that remained in situ for longer.

They were (as far as I know) distributed to all VGS's ....with enough copies for each member of Staff to have one - we certainly recieved a couple of boxes of them IIRC.
It's probably more like 30 years ago now I think about it.

I have no idea who produced them ...but probably distributed through ACCGS as it was then!

Petrol in the sump
 

Ah the dreaded petrol in sump because someone left the fuel on all night (worse if fuel tank full).
In the real aviation world this would be classed as 'oil dilution' for starts in very cold climates but of course we had no info on that so a sump drain was the required fix. Staff Cdt fix was to tow said winch to a 'remote' out of sight runway drain, drop the sump plug and problem solved. Then back to MT section and avail oneself of a suitable quantity of OMD 110 for the Bedford engine. As it was usually a Civ Inst that had fouled up (never a Staff Cdt) we just dealt with it and said nothing. However one day whilst engaged on a similar mission we were stopped by 'the powers to be' before we had dropped the plug, and sent off to do airfield duties. Some time later and errant winch was still not operational as 'the powers to be' had failed to find a suitable spanner to undo the rather large plug. Staff Cdts 'grilled' to find out how we were going to remove plug.!!!. OH, Cdt F/Sgt.............. does that with his VW Beetle hub nut ring spanner (which had 36 & 40 mm end's) !!!! You could neve get one over the Staff Cadets 'Ever'.
No one ever found out how we kept the 'stove' going in our HQ. Answer was a nocturnal visit in our SWB Rover to one of the mess's coke store's. After filling and securing said fuel Rover was hosed out and returned to hangar, those stoves would glow red hot. Twenty A&B's in a week, for Cadets by Cadets proud to have been part of it.

After CISTRS, on 618 @ West Malling in the late 70s IIRC, the Sedburgh and Kirby Cadet were using:

C - Controls - Full & Free
B - Ballast - Not Fitted
S - Straps
I - Instruments (both of them, or was it 3)
T - Trim
C - Canopy - Not Fitted
B - Brakes - Not Fitted but we do have spoilers - Fully Open and in line, Fully Closed.

Halcyon Days

Good morning everyone, a quick question if I may. I note from an old BGA log-book that I got my BGA A/B "tickets" on 19 Dec 54 at Exeter ATC VGS - what I cannot find anywhere is the number of the school (now long gone I am sure!). What great days and what a learning experience for a young lad (at least I think I was!!)
Bill