The original JP courses in the 50s took student pilots with no previous flying experience straight onto the JP.

TBH though, you couldn't call FSS much of a flying experience. It was all 'monkey see, monkey do' with no explanation, much less teaching.

As I vaguely recall it in the late 70s (78 I think, when I was going through Cranwell as a student) there was a least one DEP JP 3 course (? 1 DEP aka "The wooden tops") where the guys had nil previous flying. By the time I got back to Sleaford Tech as a QFI in the mid 80s all courses were on the 5, the short course guys were generally from the UASs, the long course students had come via Chippies/Swinderby..

From 1985, the Swinderby students were doing the 65 hour EFTS course and did the JP5 short course at Cranwell.

One recalls that the straight through JP pilots were known as "Kerosene Kiddies" - not necessarily affectionately.........

When I was a university undergraduate, one of our ULAS QFIs was an ex-Cranwellian, who'd been on one of the last Provost / Vampire courses. He and his course colleagues had been rather disparaging about the lowly JP3 when it arrived for the first of the College's 'straight through jet' basic flying training courses in 1961.

I was lucky enough to have been on one of the last of the traditional 'common core' JP3/5 courses in 1974 before the course was changed and the 'Group 1 Phase 1' thing started in 1975. Everyone, whether destined for Harriers, Vulcans or Wessex did exactly the same 125/140 hour course, with only UAS graduates doing the shorter course.

No doubt it was an expensive way to train, but it achieved excellence and was also great fun!

Hi Beags:
You might like to read this about how our current Service" plans" for future excellence...

https://www.raf.mod.uk/role/futureoftherafprototype.cfm

Hell's teeth!

Hi Haraka - as I only speak English, a smattering of French and German and can usually order a meal in Spanish, I didn't understand most of that link with its peculiar mixture of upper and lower case words, initialisations and bizspeak wanquewords.

What's CAS' FASOC beacon FFS? Something like the rudely named inland lighthouse which you will remember was on top of College Hall?

I'm with you, BEagle ... what a pile of MBA scribble-speak. In my days in MoD at least we spoke and wrote in English, and our bosses were Air Officers and not Chief Executives.

I just wonder what the likes of Trenchard,Smuts,Henderson and Sykes would have made of all this........

Well, it's all perfectly clear to me, even as an old ex spec aircrew f@rt.

That is, it's clearly why we have the :mad: RAF that we have today :hmm:

I think it's best for all of us that you lot are ex-aircrew. That's banter by the way.

I'm not pretending I understand any of that rubbish either I just don't waste a single second of my day caring about it.

BV

Although long retired and in my dotage, I was sure that the RAF's Merlins were handed over to the RN from 28 (AC) and 78 Squadrons around three years ago now.
However this is seemingly not the case, according to the text and colour pictures spread across the "Agile Adaptable and Capable " perpetrators of the overall website I quoted from in #147.
I expect they got all the senior appointment bio's up to date though.....

The plethora of "when I was..." is all very interesting but so far no-one has answered the question I posed in Post #133 regarding the fast-jet training period reduction from 5 to 3.5 years.
Or does the "Adaptable and Capable" part of the slogan cover it?

Anyone?

Lyneham Lad.

Maybe I can attempt to answer it. It's much like when the government include Nuclear deterrent and pensions in the 2% of GDP figure for the defence budget. You can say you have reduced the timescale to anything you like. It just depends on the level to which your graduate has been trained.

The bottom line is anything is possible. I was CR on the Jag after 4.5 years from the day I joined as a graduate direct entrant. I spent 20 months of that time holding. I would say efficiency is the key.

We can now spend the next 5 pages debating if that's possible or just enjoy our evenings instead and wait and see.

BV

I sense a "thought shower" mentality approaches. Just what got the 1000 bomber raids sorted. Not.

From that link came the RAF Strategy

https://www.raf.mod.uk/rafcms/mediaf...A5A1362C13.pdf

But probably what got Barnes Wallis thinking on the right track...

Cranditz has a caravan because the King Air's operate(d) out of there but Wittering doesn't as it's only the fixed-undercarriage Tutor that routinely operates out of there. They both still have flares.



Clearly they believe they do and I can see no real reason to disbelieve it. With greater use of simulators and CBT, plus a hugely more efficient use of aircraft there is clearly a plan to graduate from EFT in shorter order. One presumes the same will apply to T6 & T2, hence the time-saving postulated. No reason why it couldn't happen.

And if anybody wants to visit Barkston Heath, the Prefects have started flying.