BA to RAF
 

Surprised nobody has picked up on this yet, perhaps it's only just appeared on the Sky News webpage?

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavir...dment-11986803

They'll get a nasty shock when they pick up their first pay cheque!

Wensleydale
 

Maybe they’ll just be grateful to be paid at all.

BV

Somebody hide the opener! There's a whole can of worms here.

A secondment might suggest an element of loan pay from BA. And a job is perhaps better than no job.

An interesting reversal of just post WW2, where I think RAF pilots were seconded to BOAC.

The RAF will pay the airline what they used to pay them. The airline will pay them what it thinks the RAF would pay them.

This has raised its head before, sometime in the 1970s IIRC. Nothing came of it then and; possibly apart from a small number of recent leavers; I would be surprised if anything came of it this time.

YS

I dont believe that any of the younger (less experienced) BA pilots who have not been in the forces will cut the mustard. Many will be washed out at the officer training stage. If indeed it was to happen.

I would assume this would be open to more than BA pilots. What about the VA, Flybe and TCX crews ...

I’ve never flown for BA or the RAF so am interested to hear why they wouldn’t cut the mustard.

The article said up to 48 months secondment so presume they will only do a tarts and vicars course followed by a rapid OCU to get the most bang for the buck?

Surely if they can capably fly a large aircraft without crashing it into anything/anyone then they should do okay on the RAFs large aircraft without the complete officer training bit?

I believe this is a BACC initiative. Up to the other airlines CCs if they want to join in the approach to the RAF?

I would have thought that most of the young people who cut the mustard to get an ATPL and join BA could also be selected and absorb the training to become Reserve/Regular Officers. I fly with both military and ATPLs and we are not that much different in the crew room. Having also served as a military recruiter, seen selection and IOT from both sides; your sweeping statement does not reflect reality.

Pilots with no military experience will have to go through 6 months officer training. Re-treads would undertake 2 week refresher course. As always, you join the military as an officer first and pilot second. There’s a lot more to the job than simply poling a large aircraft around.

A little bit arrogant! There are probably many relatively inexperienced BA pilots who would run rings around their RAF colleagues, given how little variety and recency some people get in the military these days.

They won’t get much of a chance to do anything other than sticks and poles in a 48 month stint. Maybe 3ic flight commander or gardening member on the committee if those jobs aren’t already filled by future CAS thrusters.

Six months IOT followed by the standard hold would make the whole exercise pointless as there wouldn’t be any opportunity to return any productive service within the suggested timescales. Either entry requirements need to be somewhat abridged or the whole thing should be restricted to retreads.

Three year Return of Service I believe.

I can't tell if this is tongue-in-cheek or serious. If the later, I'm actually embarrassed for you.