Air Cadet Rank Slides
 

Apologies if this has been done already (couldn't find on a quick search) but WTF is this?! Are they serious??

Seen a few commissioned type rank slides floating around the station in the last few days with "RAF Air Cadets" (as opposed to Army or Navy Air Cadets :hmm:) but the aircrew ones are surely a p*** take?? Nobody has approved that right?! :confused::=

https://forum.aircadetcentral.net/up...29ccb96263.jpg

These look like the rank slides for Adult staff rather than cadets. I believe the bottom right WO slide is colloquially known as a 'Tate and Lyles'?

The wonders of being a CI
 

As far as the Gliding side was concerned being a 'catted' CI was a great option.
You could just get on with the flying and not have any issues from HQ Air Cadets or the local wing.
In fact the whole system seems to have gone astray since the demise of real control from the 'centres' who of course used to have a hands on approach and their CO's who led from the front. Experienced centre staff would have direct contact with the schools and maintained suitable standards. The attempt to infuse the CFS element never really worked as the systems were poles apart and the equipment stone age in aviation terms. On the one side you had 'selected' screened students on a full time flying course with suitable ground school, and at the schools enthusiastic students available on an ad hoc basis with no real classroom time. Strange; our system worked because it had evolved to suit the circumstances, and no one can say it did not work very well.

Strange layout, you would think they would have the flying ones running vertically down in sequence, same goes for the ordinary spacies.

What is the difference (apart from the obvious visual one) between Master Aircrew and WO Aircrew? The RAF don’t have WO1s and WO2s - so I just don’t get it?

Non Commissioned Aircrew rank
 

Personally I think the Air Cadets wearing the NCA ranks following their five minute gliding course is disgraceful. However, I know that others don't have a problem with it (including fellow NCA).
And yes, I know it says 'RAF Air Cadets' below.
I know of one RAF NCA colleague who has been mistaken for an cadet glider instructor already. It just reinforces the contempt for NCA from the Regular RAF hierarchy.
Maybe they should join in with the Job Evaluation next year...might get us a pay rise!

Seeing as the Air Cadet Glider Pilots are NOT Qualified Service Pilots (hence they don’t wear RAF wings) then the NCO Glider Pilots are NOT Qualified Service WSOps as NCA. So the brevets and the RAF AIR CADETS are the identifiers. There have been plenty of RAFVR(T) officers strutting around without VRT tags in the past, but their behaviour normally quickly gives them away as being from the lowest level of reserve service. The same is likely to be true with these NCO/WO insignia. Not a criticism of the individuals but the ‘veneer thin’ service training they recieve before wearing the rank.

I do agree that this is a daft use of NCA rank insignia though :ok:

For those with a bit of time on their hands, a 1652 post thread exists here.
Warning! you may well lose the will to live if you read too much of it!

The new rank slides are all part of the reorganisation and re-branding exercise that the air cadet organisation is undergoing. If you read the thread at the link, you will find a lot of people getting very agitated about the demise of the VRT commission and is replacement with the Cadet force commission (CFC). Whilst it may appear that the matter may have been "sub-optimally handled", it is in effect a long overdue reform exercise.

Its roots go back to the 1970s after the Air Training Corps (ATC) had ceased to be a pre-service training organisation and became a MoD sponsored youth organisation. It was mooted that ATC officers should be moved from the RAF list but this was turned down as many former WW2 personnel remained in the ranks and most volunteer staff had some service experience.

The matter was raised again circa 1990 when it was becoming apparent that the proportion of ATC (VRT) officers and staff with no experience other than in the cadet corp was rising rapidly. The question was asked as to whether it was either necessary or correct that they should hold a military commission? Unfortunately, due to lack of resource (and will?) the matter was again kicked into the long grass.

Why the nettle was grasped this time, I do not know, but suspect that a large number of factors were involved and the move for change became irresistible. Thus the ATC - RAF Air Cadets (RAFAC) have arrived by a not altogether smooth process.

Make of it what you will.

YS

The Tate and Lyle can only be worn by RAFAC (RAF Air Cadets) WOs who have been Regular RAF or RAF Reserve WOs (or in some cases WOs in the Army or Navy). RAFAC WOs who get the rank based on time in the Corps wear the crown.

There's a lot of mutterings going on within RAFAC at the moment given the corporate re-branding. Personally, as aircrew I see no reason for NCO Gliding Instructors to be given NCA type rank slides - they have a brevet to identify them. It appears to have been driven by OC 2 FTS (make of that what you will).

Furthermore, while I have no problem with the re-branding to 'RAFAC' (from VR(T) / ATC) the fact that adult staff now have to wear rank slides with the word 'cadets' on them as opposed to RAFAC 'pins' (as on No 1 and No 5 Dress) is pretty insulting given the fact that these adults are not cadets.

Single cloth crown is worn by Adult Warrant Officers upon appointment, if I remember correctly after 7 or 8 years service one was entitled to put up the Tate & Lyles. Quite sensible in my view as a 21 year old wearing a coat of arms just didn't seem right, it was bad enough wearing the Crown in a Sergeants Mess at 21 when those who lived there had worked so hard over many years to get three stripes, not surprisingly we were often ignored. Only ever experienced one incident in the mess TV room when a Sergeant entered the darkened room whilst we were watching the evening news, strode over to the set and switched channels. From the dark room came a voice that turned out to be a female Warrant Officer who had taken offence with him doing that without asking if we objected, she wiped the floor with him and apologised to us for his behavior then carried on with her knitting.

Yellow Sun, your post is somewhat short of the mark.

The move is a Tri-Service thing with the enforced removals of current RAFVR(T) Commissions and Reserve Forces Type B Commissions (Army Cadet Force) and the replacement with the 'Cadet Forces Commission'; of course the Sea Cadet Corps like it since, historically, they held no Commission.

While the reasoning given for the change in status is the rationalisation of the Regular and Reserve Forces and the concomittant drift away of the VR(T) and ACF, the actual underlying reason is the fact that VR(T) and Type B Commissions lay within the Armed Forces Act giving holders the right of redress of grievance.

The Service Complaints systen has been jammed up with idiotic trivia from (primarily) senior ACF people. It's not surprising, then, that the MOD and Defence Council have cried 'enough'.

It hasn't been that way in many years.

ExAscoteer:

Yes I fully accept what you say, in particular the Tri-Service rationalisation. However I did try to keep it simple and provide some historical perspective.

This is something that I have heard anecdotally but MoD has not been too forthcoming with detail. I also believe that there was a raft of other legal and quasi-legal argument that supported the move.

It was always going to be a minefield from the start but I think it was the correct thing to do. Whether it has been communicated and implemented well, that is open to debate.

YS

Thought it might have changed when they started appointing Adult Sergeants to ATC Squadrons some years ago.

YS I'm not so sure.

I suggested to Commandant ACO some 3 years ago that all that was needed was an amendment to the AFA meaning that Sevice Complaints for VR(T) and Class B Commissions stopped at relevent Commandant level (as opposed to the Defence Council).

Tellingly, AEF personnel will retain their VR(T) Commissions since there (apparently) needs to be a level of accountability.

I forsee consequences to this change such as the loss of the ability to draw weapons and ammunition from Service Armouries, let alone the loss of the ability to use Section 5 Firearms (routinely L98A2 and L86A2, as well as L85A2 for the Junior Leaders cse).

I don't know if it's changed (a long time since I was flying Chippies) but to be an AEF pilot you had to be RAF qualified. Nowadays that means you must have been commissioned (?). I Have two commissioning scrolls. One as Acting Pilot Officer in the regular force, and one as a Flying Officer VR(T)

AFAIK to be an AEF pilot currently you have to have either been a Service Pilot or hold a CPL.

Don't quote me on that though!

ExAscoteer

That would appear to assume that the driver was solely the issue of Service Complaints. It may have been the final element, but there would seem to have been many other factors.

The AEF issue was always going need a different solution and retaining the VRT commission for this purpose would seem appropriate.

The Firearms issue revolves almost solely around the use of S5 weapons ( I use that term deliberately). The exemptions for S1 and 2 are well established and straightforward, but why the decision was ever taken to provision a S5 weapon for a youth organisation almost beggars belief. I have never heard anything approaching a convincing argument for it. Civilianising cadet shooting would do much to make it more accessible and provide a proper output pathway.

YS

If these are indeed genuine, I can't wait to see the first Air Cadet (adult or otherwise) wearing '****ehawks' on their shoulder walk into a Mess or Sqn populated by real NCA. That should be a fairly short conversation!! :}
:hmm:

I can't wait to see NCA walk into a mess/Sqn occupied by real WOs/SNCOs. :E