Thorr - or the cadets can't make a weekend because they work Saturday or Sunday or because they don't want to waste a full weekend on the activity?

Will it herald the end of gliding for female cadets due to the near impossibility sometimes of getting female staff cover?

Unless there are permanent staff ?? and a smaller volunteer cadre (a la TA)

Arc

MORE YUK SPEAK
 

Quote from brief

Future Gliding Flying will be better for Cadets, 'tauter' against a task and more sharply controlled ** !!!!!

What sort of P.... writes this crap,and what sort of 'Leadership' lets them do it.
Are we the only ones who see it for what it is; utter drivel and a pathetic attempt to rewrite history and paper over the 'chasms' of COMPLETE FAILURE.
Not enough Swords in the system to fall upon.

**I thought it was the definitive description of the perfect winch launch,but then reasoned that they would have no idea about such things.

This has to be the worst 75th anniversary for anything anywhere,yet they still think they are doing a great job. If youngsters have any sense they will join the Scouts and get real; but then they have a LEADER.

Well Pobjoy (and others) I share the utter frustration of not being able to do anything to help. The jewel in the Crown of the Air Cadets that we loved and knew well has been plucked out and will be replaced with what will turn out to be a paste replica.

Remember all those hours we put in on the winches and not a training video in sight. I find it amazing that they have to be taught how to wear a pair of gloves now!! Have a look at this YouTube video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMDxZytq8ZE

I wonder how we ever got on without this sort of briefing? The senior staff cadet used to sit on the petrol tank and said pull this and push that - and it worked!

Nice to dream about winches, pity there are no gliders to launch from them - well not just yet anyway!

This is unreal!! I am totally lost for words (if you know me then you may be surprised!), however, the whole sorry story reeks of poor leadership, mal-administration and a TOTAL lack of insight into the Air Training Corps volunteers and cadets!! I went solo at Exeter in the early '50's and carried on in the RAF and other "places" as a pilot for many years. ALL down to the Air Training Corps! Seems that the current cadets are being let down in a big way! (Indeed, I know they are because I still work with a local squadron). A total disaster! Still, Happy 75th birthday!!!

Still think of the up side.

Bonuses and Knighthoods all round for the "Executives" for services to the Air Cadet Corps and I suspect a further extension of personal contracts to age 80.

Bonuses all round HURRAH!!!

After all its only taxpayers money.

BBC Story
 

1st(?) BBC Story

Air cadet gliding scrapped at St Athan and Swansea - BBC News

Isn't it an amazing coincidence that the blueprint for recovery from this cluster**** bears an uncanny resemblance to the plan Middleton was pushing four to five years ago as RC North- long before the MAA ****storm was on anybody's radar? This, I feel, is the crux of the problem and why I think that few will continue to press on and fly AEF (presumably for free, while UAS cadets get paid). The leadership of the ACO, 22Gp and beyond, no longer than any credibility amongst the volunteers due to their ineptitude, deceitfulness and gross negligence from start to finish.

If this was the plan two years ago, then the guys and girls on the VGSs should have been told two f*****g years ago, so they could have gone on with their lives. As it is, they've taken time and effort to keep their sqns together; kept up with admin bollocks, including being bored to death by trappers' PowerPoint presentations, ironically telling them all about things like "Just culture". They've come up with their own training programmes to try and prevent skill fade and been asked by the powers at be to engage with and train local cadet units. They've been dragged to public events and airshows to sell the idea of the Air Cadets as somewhere kids can learn to fly. Finally, when the RAF has all the pieces are in place, they pull the rug from underneath the volunteers, claiming that it's a ministerial decision when everyone knows that the Minister is simply ordering from the menu that's been pushed under his nose. Why, in God's name, would any right-minded person want to continue to be manipulated and exploited in such a way?

The Vultures are circling! I know from persons in know, that there are some individuals and organisations looking to snap up the vigilants as since as they are released for disposal. No doubt, they will be sold off at a low price - given they are not "airworthy". And guess how long those who buy them will get them back in the air! Doubt it will be 2 years! What will that say for the organisation that has said the situation is unrecoverable....

Lots of staff, not just on the VGSs , are thinking hard about their futures, I have only felt like this once before when the RUC changed to the PSNI and I saw the RUC crests being ripped from the station wall at midnight on the date of the changeover.
In reality ,especially in NI what can we now offer cadets that others can't ?

And don't lose sight of the big ongoing risk to the VGSs that are due to remain
 

From yesterday's ministerial statement, all we know for now is which VGSs have survived, not where they are going to be located:

'While work is undertaken to set up this new structure, the future locations of these Squadrons remains subject to the outcome of MOD estate rationalisation due to announce later this year. While it is likely that many Squadrons will remain at their current locations, we are working to ensure that, where this is not the case, flying opportunities will be made available to Cadet Units within their region and any new locations will be as geographically close to the existing locations as possible'.

This is a very real threat. It is not that easy generally these days to relocate a Viking VGS to another airfield 'just up the road' (that just happens to be in the right sort of catchment area, which is suitable for winch launching, and where other tenants do not already have their own busy operations to manage).

So, which of the following 10 planned VGS sites is 'safe' [I have assumed that Syerston is], and what should be (or is being) done to protect them?

Kirknewton (661)
Topcliffe (645)
Woodvale (631)
Ternhill (632)
Little Rissington (637)
Wethersfield (614)
Kenley (615)
Upavon (622)
Merryfield (621)
Predannack (626)

I really do hope that the RAF's most senior officers are making strong representations on the importance of Air cadet gliding to the long-term viability of the Air Cadet Organisation and hence the importance of retaining these sites. I really do hope that this is happening and that it is not being left to chance on the assumption that the Defence Infrastructure Organisation and others will work it out for themselves; they won't.

This is a heartfelt post on Facebook by a close friend of mine, as well as being a former cadet, a current member of staff but due to his love of flying gained in the ATC a former AAC pilot. I have his permission to share this.

Hi All
Yesterday we got the shock news that the Reserve Armed Forces minister has backed the OC 2FTS to slash the Air Cadet Volunteer Gliding Squadrons from 25 to 11 in our 75th Anniversary Year.
The decision is shocking and is based purely on monitory terms and takes the Air out of the Air Training Corps.
We in Northern Ireland are affected more than any region, now that we do not have any flying assets within Northern Ireland.
We are promised an Air Experience Flight (AEF) sometime in the future which could be up to 2 years maybe more away.
Our cadets have a chance of flying by travelling to Woodvale by lLiverpool once a year, they travel across and many a time do not fly due to weather, they don't get another chance that year!!
If we are fortunate, we might get flying at annual camps, in my experience over the last 3 years of camps which I have been Camp Commandant, we haven't had any AEF. Always excuses why they cannot provide flights for camps!!
Voyager flights have been promised, nothing provided, helicopter flights by Joint Helicopter Command have been promised, again nothing has materialise. Our mother service, the Royal Air Force, doesn't give a flying f*** about there cadet organisation, the Air Cadets, ATC and CCF (RAF).
I have been an Officer in the RAF VR(T) for 24 years and feel so demotivated by this move. What makes it worse for me, my son who is a cadet in the ATC and CCF (RAF) became 16 just after the grounding, not the paused to flying that OC 2FTS likes to call it, the grounding of all the gliders just when he became eligible to apply for a Gliding Scholarship.
There will be no gliding opportunity available for him during the rest of his time in the Corps, his only chance of a flying qualification would be if he was selected for a Flying Scholarship.
With this decision to cut the VGS, you would think they would have increased the number of Flying Scholarship available? No, Northern Ireland only got one cadet selected to receive a Flying Scholarship for 2016.
I am sorry for this long winded FB message, but I feel aggrieved for every cadet in the Corps and all the VGS staff who now find themselves displaced by this decision and by the Corps.
I ask if you would like this page, and if you have some connection, write, phone, email the people named and contact your MP.

:D:D

Throwing off the shackles of incompetence
 

It is quite obvious that the Air Cadets have no real leadership anymore and also very little reason to stay aligned with the the RAF.
If i were a Cadet and saw the likes of the chief scout (Bear Grylls) swinging aloft on his Para Glider (powered) i would think 'I am off to join an organisation that actually does things without the B....S.....' If enough extra air minded youngsters do this the Scouts can increase the 'Air' bit (there have always been Air Scouts) and even start up their own flying wing (no shortage of qualified instructors out there now !!!!) with time on their hands.
JM and his band of nit wits can then go take a hike and play with the part task trainers and do extra sewing classes to get those left up to speed on correct badge fitment.Those in charge are a disgrace and have had no real thought for the lack of leadership and faith for the youngsters who are being shafted. Now where is my old woggle and Baden Powell hat !!!

ATFQ I did rather hope they might close Rissington and move 637 into Abingdon - as one suspects the army would like to keep it open for weekday use and the VGS could do weekends.

No doubt they'll say the area is too unsafe for winching...

Why move 637 to Abingdon? 612 were (are) already there and were a statistically more efficient Squadron anyway

Who the hell dreamed this up? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMDxZytq8ZE


How to wear a pair of gloves? It then shows the instructor NOT wearing any gloves! Handover of control and how to bail out, door jettison... JUMP, JUMP, JUMP ... how pathetic. It's a winch for God's sake! Why jump and risk breaking a leg when there's a perfectly good ladder?


If this is a typical brief of how to do stuff then it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it would take two years of training before anyone would get even close to an aeroplane. Lessons in growing up would be more appropriate.

I believe that the Army have applied for a Drop Zone at Abingdon as they plan to start parachuting there soon?

That spoof winch training video is commedy gold. For those unaware it is a near perfect mimic of the VGS safety video which is shown to the cadets.

To those who made it - top effort lads!

Hook, line and sinker!


TCF

Look at any of the books available on project management and most, if not all, mention the 6 phases of any big project. While a cynical view it comes from their seemingly inherent tendency towards chaos if not managed properly:

1. Enthusiasm,
2. Disillusionment,
3. Panic and hysteria,
4. Hunt for the guilty,
5. Punishment of the innocent, and
6. Honours for the uninvolved.

This project is probably at stage 3 at the moment...