RRP (Flying) Review
 

As this is a rumour site, I thought I would see what rumours are doing the rounds in your local crew rooms about the review of Recruitment & Retention Pay (Flying).

Looks like the AFPRB have been conducting their review since the publication of the last pay recommendations last year and also reviewing mountain leader RRP.

The recurring rumour here is that flying pay won't kick in until after completion of the post OCU six year RoS for new entrants.

Wilder rumours I have heard are flying pay gone completely/vastly reduced (highly unlikely)

Flying pay paid only on days when you fly.

Increase in the time between the levels of time between normal, middle and high rate flying pay.

...and last but certainly the least likely, vast increases in flying pay and Golden handcuffs payments for WSOps...

ALM
 

I felt bad for you that nobody else had responded yet. So, to save your sanity I can confirm that I have also heard the 6 year rumour. Whilst it will not affect me I feel that, if true, it is a bloody ridiculous plan.

Firstly, you may find the situation, for example, where a guy/gal can be a Typhoon QWI at the end of their second tour before they see any form of flying pay. Effectively putting someone who has had to be at the top of their game, pass a myriad of demanding courses and potentially act as the tactical lead for an RAF FJ Sqn as it deploys to war, all for the same pay as the Stn Adj. Who, by the way, will probably already be a Sqn Ldr after his far shorter trade training and much more time to work on his career broadening staff work.

Secondly how exactly do the RAF expect to retain any quality personnel if you pay them peanuts? There used to be the pension trap, bridging package and the spectre of a pay drop upon leaving the service to a civilian flying job (which is unpalatable particularly to those with kids). Now there will be absolutely nothing to keep a guy in beyond his 6 year return of service. If the powers that be think that the hefty jump of a whole extra £4000 per year (pre-tax) that flying pay will bring will retain people then I suggest we send the CDT team to wherever they work.

However, despite all I have said please bear in mind this is NOT a cost-cutting exercise.

BV:rolleyes:

........and that Typhoon QWI will be earning less than a Tube driver, have less time off, and will not receive extra for working weekends or public holiday.

Few of us join for the money, but it is an increasingly important part of making us stay.

Bob,

Well said!

The rumour I've heard is that after 6 years initial ros, the retention pay for those 6 years will be paid as a lump sum (with a further ros attached to it).

Not heard any other rumours though. To me it would seem inconceivable for there to be any reduction in retention pay, given that the RAF really need to retain all aircrew trades, amid the sdsr announcements and airline recruiting.

So cuts it will be then no doubt!!

Here's an idea, why not get the trainees to pay for their flying training up until they are qualified, rather like the Civilian counterpart who self finances up to ATPL and then often fly for peanuts as they hour build..

:E


Nice sensible idea, but I bet that would cost more to implement and oversee than it would save in the long run.

:p

Possibly, but how do the Royal Navy do it with their submariners?

Thank you for taking pity on me and rescuing the thread Bob 😀

Heard another good one from an aircrew mate who went to one of the pay briefs yesterday. More money into flying pay but probably only for front enders.

Also I have heard the one about RRP being paid as a lump sum at the end of initial RoS.

Flying pay only to be paid on the days when you fly....

That'll be all those of us who are on ground tours bending over and taking it for the team then. All of a sudden, ground tours became very unnatractive. Personally speaking I would love to go flying again, but long term illness prevents me from doing so. Taking RRP away would be a step too far for me I am afraid. I have no choice but to occupy my role, why should I lose out? It's RRP after all, not flying pay isn't it?

And would that not also lead to the problems that I have heard about in the 50s (well before my time!!) when "desk fliers" apparently had to get x hrs per year to retain flying pay.

Net result, ground tourists panicking to get the hours in at the end of the year, and then having a disproportionate number of crashes/incidents/accidents.

Tick chasing of the worst sort..... :ugh:

So from a previously unanswered/ignored question from another post: I again ask why Officer pay is not banded by he same standards applied to Non Commissioned members by the latest debacle? I believe that a Provost Officer, Admin Officer ou les bluntee, do not work to or possess the same academic or professional rigour that say an Engineering or ATC Officer (as an example) possesses, and must work and sign up to. Signing off a repair or limitation on a jet is somewhat different to signing off on an investigation, a deviation from some obscure QR or AP, or reporting on the quality of the morning barrier lift (for example). I have deliberately cited ground "trades" that do no carry the Aircrew bollock5 arguments, and I do not subscribe to the argument that Officers are Officers first; WO and SNCO subscribe to the same argument but their pay is still activity and professionally based. Lets get on the same playing field.

I feel for the Loadies on the Sqns and I'm aware of several meetings going ahead to resolve the NEM, the loss of pay from it etc etc ( figures i've heard are 17k over next 10 years)

Add to this the increase in NI from April onwards, which is another pay cut for us all.

The rumours I've heard from manning are that they are aware of the crisis and will do anything to keep pilots.....I think they need to act quickly on this.

Having over heard a conversation with a Sqn boss, he said ' if pilots just want to fly, they can hand back their Officer pay and just be paid as pilots'.

Sums it up really.

Paid as pilots...
 

...pay rises all round then!?!

Avtur.

I agree with you to an extent. The problem is that that could look like an attractive cost cutting exercise and lead to pay cuts. I don't necessarily think the ground trades should earn less (although I think some of them are overpaid for their role they still have an important job to do) I just think that individuals who do the most demanding jobs should be appropriately remunerated.

Please bear in mind that I am a FJ pilot so my posts will always have that slant attached. It doesn't mean I don't care about everyone else it's just that it's not my milieux.

On a separate note if someone were to suggest flying pay on days you fly then I would suggest they need to decide upon what it is for. If it is flying pay then it should be payable from day one whenever you fly. If it is RRP then it needs to be paid regardless of your current role. Due to this contradiction I don't think that will happen. Otherwise, as has been pointed out, taking a ground job would incur a financial penalty which would be counter productive to say the least.

BV

Teeteringhead,


In the 1950s, as you say, aircrew on ground tours, had to get in some airborne time - it was applied to ALL aircrew similarly employed. As an Air Siggie at the time, engaged in teaching the signals environment to pilots, I was sent once a year to an active flying station where I sat in Varsity aircraft for bum-numbing hours tootling around the UK with trainee Navs. (Once an hour I would send a Position Report based on application to my Consol chart of data from the Consol beacons.) Being based at Nos. 1 and 4 FTSs I got various amounts of time sitting unproductively in Vampire T11s. There may have been a minimum number of hours required to retain flying pay but I cannot recall there ever being a 'scramble' at the end of the year.

I've too heard the 6 year post OCU rumour. The additional rumour I've had though is that is would then start at circa £12K (top rate now) and go up annually about £1k to a top of about £19K. Those already in training to retain rights to the old scheme, applicable to new joiners only.

Nothing seen on paper at all to confirm it, just consistent, repeated rumours.

If it does happen it would truly be a 'retention' payment for those outside initial RoS.

I must say that whilst times change, the new approach (if it resembles that which is rumoured!) just oozes cynical, piteous manoeuvring, whilst the BMA is the mouth piece for the Doctors, the MOD has nothing to stand in its way. The head shed know that there will be a que of thrusting youngsters ready to fly for next to sweet FA. They that must be obeyed seem very willing to exploit that to its fullest. The word NASTY springs to mind.
IF in the minuscule chance that they read this....well done, you really must be proud of yourselves....:D

ValMORNA and Teeteringhead,

As I recall, the position on the (recently introduced) flying pay in the early fifties was that it was payable as long as you remained appointable for flying duties. On a ground tour, it was your own responsibility to find a flying unit which would give you some flying time to keep your hand in.

Some people were fortunate (I had a ground tour on an Auxiliary station; the Squadron (608) flew Vampires on which I was experienced). Others were not, the accident rate for returners bumped up, they changed the policy: now you had a fortnight's refresher course every year and a month at the end before returning to flying duties.

Danny42C.

Having read all this stuff, I thank my lucky stars that I chose to leave the RAF at the age of 38. It had been fun for most of the time but was beginning to wear thin. My colleagues who left after eight years with a lump sum of, I seem to remember, £4000, were able to start with the airlines and have a down payment for a house. They were all senior captains before I joined as a second officer and it took a long time to get into the left hand seat. But I enjoyed the work and play.


My good mate and I were sitting the ATPL ground exams when he was asked to take a phone call from Air Ministry who offered him a scraper if he agreed to stay on. Poor sod was posted from sunny North Devon to Valley only to die in a Hunter 7 accident near Shawbury a couple of months later.

26er was that the Hunter T7 accident on 2 Nov 1973?

BEagle, Sorry but the date escapes me. I thought it was earlier than that. He was Ron Etheridge and had started his RAF time as a drill instructor- possibly as a NS Airman.