Creamies ?
 

Is it possible to be selected as a Creamie and never actually serve outside a training squadron, i.e. no front line service throughout your RAF career?

No....

The system was established to give you one your as an instructor at BFJT/AFT then put you back in to the training system and get you to the front line. There may, of course, be an exception to this rule somewhere, but I've never heard of it happening.

In theory, there is no rule preventing a creamie from being continually retoured on training establishments. In practice, the closest I've seen anyone come is a short tour at the front line, after which they got onto the promotion ladder and did their sqn ldr and wg cdr flying tours in the training system. (I also know someone who PVRed at the end of their creamie tour, but I don't think that's what you meant!)

I knew a bloke who did a creamie tour, never went to the front line but stayed at Valley for 4 years, then went into a multi-engine transport role for the rest of his time.

...........

Yes - I know someone who managed 17 years in the training world post creamy life. Strangely enough, he didn't do too well on his 1st FL type - kept trying to debrief his QFI's on their own techniques!

Similar idea:
I was aked to look at the annual flagship "advanced course" at a military establishment I shall not name, with a view to improving the content and output. Looking at the career patterns of the graduates and the application of acquired skills in subsequent employment, it became apparent that the only real function of the course was to provide instructors for the next course. When I presented my findings and finished with: "so it really does not matter what you teach" they were not happy.

There was a Creamie on 3 Sqn at Valley in the late 80s, Pete S. I’m sure he then went on to QFI on the Chipmunk at Swinderby before leaving the RAF without serving on the frontline.

Anyone care to educate this Yank on what a “creamie” is?

A First Assignment IP. A creamie QFI is said to have been "creamed off" from flying training, in the sense of separating the best part. I'm now going to risk a QFI pile-on by opining that it's been at least 20 years since creamies actually had to be the cream of their courses...

Easy Street,
Thank You for the explanation. In the USAF we called them FAIP’s (First Assignment Instructor Pilots) They usually finished well above average at Pilot training, and were all fighter qualified from Pilot train8ng, as opposed to Tanker, Transport qualified. Unfortunately for them, there were no guarantee of a follow on fighter assignment, as the needs of the Air Force was the deciding factor for follow on assignments. The US Navy also has First assignment Instructors but they award a follow on assignment to them before they begin their instructor tour. A much better arrangement.

We stream pilots to fighters/transports/helicopters after the elementary stage of training, but don't select creamies until after the advanced fighter course (and we don't select them at all in the other two streams, as far as I know). The example given earlier of one who went to transports after their instructional tour is a very unusual one: I'd suspect it would have been at personal request. It's possible for creamies to be chopped during tactical or front-line conversion training, but very unlikely because (despite my earlier banter) they're high on the ability scale and have accumulated a wealth of airmanship. Their main problem tends to be that they're less of a blank canvas for front line IPs to work on, and they quite often end up in the "good pilot but not QWI (Weapons School) material" bracket at the end of their first front line tour.

Easystreet
 

Just to highlight a small change in how things are done nowadays, Creamies are currently selected after having completed the full Hawk course including Tac Weapons. In the T1 days they were taken after AFT and would complete TW after their Hawk tour.

This means that Creamies have the opportunity to teach and perform more than just the AFT course elements. They can actually end up teaching other disciplines such as BFM.

I think, although I cannot confirm, that they will then receive a quick refresher on the more advanced elements such as ACM and Radar stuff before heading to an OCU.

I think this is actually a good thing and makes the Creamie tour a more fulfilling experience.

BV

To expand a little, I knew at least one Griffin HT1 graduate who had a short tour at Shawbury as a staff pilot on the Griffin before joining the Puma OCF. To my knowledge he didn't do a CFS(H) course a la creamie.
A relative of mine has also just graduated from the Juno course at Shawbury: after spending FIVE years in the MFTS debacle (IOT grad was 2016)! He is now holding again pre-OCF as an AEF staff pilot. So it does happen...ish.

The Valley chap I mentioned wanted F3s, but I am unsighted as to why he never went F3 after creamie tour. He eventually went to the BAe146. (So a jet of sorts!)

No disrespect intended to your relative, but flying cadets on an Air Experience Flight is not remotely, let alone 'ish' like being creamed off... the only requirements are to have earned your wings and have time to spare. Lots of people have done it between courses during the recent holding debacle, including some between basic and advanced jet training.

Easy Street

"and they quite often end up in the "good pilot but not QWI (Weapons School) material" bracket at the end of their first front line tour". My italics.

Where exactly have you obtained this information? Are we to understand that you have seen the confidential reports of a series of 'creamies'. Or is this just anti-QFI banter?
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Creamies
 

As much as I love to banter Creamies (who doesn’t?!), if they were less likely to become QWIs I’d say it was less to do with ability and more to do with the fact that they already had a Q tick and didn’t need another one.

Whilst were at the banter let’s sling some at the QWIs instead.

Maybe the Creamies had learned too much about how to be a real instructor to become a QWI? I didn’t meet many QWIs who actually seemed to understand what the ‘I’ in their title stood for.

Pulls pin, rolls grenade into the room…

BV

And some old CFS banter:

Those that can do.
Those that can't instruct.
and those that can't instruct - instruct instructors!

In the days when aircraft were not easy to fly those who could pilot them well became Flying Instructors. They formed their own cult and had long, arduous and at times humiliating initiation ceremonies where the 'knowledge' was preserved and passed on. After they became 'Qualified' there were subsequent steps to gain deeper knowledge.
When aircraft became easier to fly weapons delivery became the next mystery around which cult like status developed along with long, arduous and at times humiliating initiation ceremonies where the 'knowledge' was preserved and passed on. The 'Weapons Instructor' was born.

Where is the next cult going to develop, somewhere deep in 'battlespace networking'?

What Does the I in QWI Stand For? A Question by an Ex-Creamie



In the bad old days of the Cold War, PAIs (QWIs in old money), were accustomed to bullying and humiliating their unfortunate students (especially if ex-creamies) - presumably in some kind of perverse and sadistic attempt to acquaint them with the hard realities of front-line squadron life.



I remember this well from my first Ground Attack OCU course many years ago. On my first weapons dual as an ex-creamie, (Air to Air), the PAI spent the whole sortie cursing and harassing me, taking control on every possible occasion. As a result I only fired the gun once. I discovered later that he hated creamies, and was clearly trying to get me chopped. Given a cine solo, I taught myself the technique and achieved an overall 45% average score for the phase – well into the Exceptional bracket. I had not received one worthwhile word of airborne instruction from the PAI.



Having subsequently spent 22 more years in the mudmoving world, in my view this appalling, unprofessional attitude permeated to many future QWIs over the years. I also noted that a large part of the QWI course was devoted to solo weapons practice for the U/T QWI, in order to build up their range scores so that they could lord it over their future students. Even with this extra practice and inside knowledge (plus the fact that they could assess their own film in the cine room!), I found that the range scores of many QWIs were not significantly better than those of the average squadron shag.


In my view such bullies should have been 1020’d (do they still do that?) off the unit for petulantly refusing to instruct in a professional manner.

ExMudmover, don't know about these days, but I assume speaking out about such behaviour back then would have been career-limiting?

CG

Definitely not anti-QFI banter, just my observations on what became of the creamies who taught me at the FTSs, my course mates who were creamed, the ex-creamies I served alongside as a junior pilot, and those I supervised, instructed and reported on as a senior supervisor. Since the observation has obviously been taken to imply criticism then allow me to expand.

Probably the biggest factor was the frequent pigeon-holing of ex-creamies into squadron QFI roles, meaning they spent a lot of time in the back of twin-stickers doing check rides rather than tactical work-ups. I witnessed that happening to many contemporaries and tried to resist it when I got into a position of influence, but if Manning counts an ex-creamie as the single QFI the squadron is established for, then your options are limited. Hopefully not an issue in the modern RAF, with no twin-stick F35s and the Typhoon tubs used only for a couple of air combat trips on the OCU.

For those who could escape or transcend the pigeonholing issue, the factor mentioned by BV came into play: for instance, if a squadron only had enough training capacity to deliver one four-ship lead workup, the promising first-tourist with a shot at QWI selection would probably get it ahead of the already-Q-ticked ex-creamie. Especially so if the ex-creamie had achieved A2 (which most had) and was soon to be considered competitive for promotion.

Not going to get deep into the QWI thing, other than to say that (thankfully) things improved a lot during my time: there seemed to have been a realisation that the toxicity shown by the staff on certain QWI courses had become self-perpetuating, as bullied students returned to become bullying instructors. As far as I can tell, that chain has been broken. As well as the general change in expectations of behaviour, there's also the fact that excellent modern simulators mean that students can have their combat skills assessed under pressure in complex scenarios, where back in the day some QWIs overcompensated for the relative simplicity of live training by applying extreme pressure to the debrief. As you experienced!

Fortunately, by the time I went through TWU at Brawdy in 1976, all was pretty good. The QFIs were (apart from one who disappeared under a cloud many years later, accompanied by a Wg Cdr Plod) good chaps who corrected our handling errors quite benignly. Some of the QWIs had been PAIs, IWIs, and other breeds of weaponeering instructors in the past, but as QWIs they taught us the art of Triggernometry quite enthusiastically. Ciné debriefs were mandatory and the clack, clack, pause of the projector as the QWI used his magic measuring jobber to assess parameters was something most of my generation will remember well. One chap went to the cinema in Haverfordwest one night; when we asked what it was like he said "It was great - the first film I've seen in ages which didn't stop suddenly as someone went up to the screen to measure something, before exclaiming "You're out of range!!" ".....

We also had a Luftwaffe exchange officer instructor who once flew a 1v1 doggers trip with a 'mature' student, little knowing that he'd been an A2 QFI on the Gnat. Every time the 'Inwards turn for combat...go' call was made there'd been half a minute of manoeuvring before the ex-Gnat mate was firmly in his 6. "A bit like the war, eh Herman?" was followed by something of a frosty response...

No doubt it's all done by computer simulation and clever electronics these days, but the roar of an AVPIN start followed by the smell of Aden cordite as you hurled yourself at Pembrey Sands was distinctly character forming and surely missed even by you, eh BV??

I had two creamies in BFTS: one was a great instructor and nice guy (bumped into him at Farnborough t'other year; the other was an utter bellend with more chips on one shoulder than Harry Ramsden's. So in a funny way, it all balanced out. Given that a significant chunk of QFIs in the 80s were ex V-Force, the QWIs at Brawdy were a welcome change and a lot more relaxed.

BEagle
 

Thankfully I still get to feel the satisfying rattle of the Aden and the small thump as a practise bomb departs the wing occasionally. But the sand upon which they rest is not Welsh!

I also get to debrief in full digital technicolour with nerry a calliper in sight.

BV

the smell of Aden cordite as you hurled yourself at Pembrey Sands

Aaaahh! The smell of cordite - one of the best smells in the world. I still find myself sniffing the odd 12-bore cartridge. Nothing odd here, move on!

Mog

This discussion has lured me out of my PPrune semi-retirement. I have some strongly held views about this - without prejudice, but based on my experience from three sides of the fence (like fence can have three sides?!). This may lead to some thread drift.

QFIs are an essential element of our flying training system and are to be thanked for every pilot that have flown our aircraft since QFIs were invented. I don’t hold with the oft stated derogatory generalisations that resulted from a few bad eggs. That happens in all areas of life. My flying career was certainly created by their efforts. What I do have doubts about is the overstated insistance by CFS that dictates that only QFIs can teach or supervise certain events. I shall come back to that shortly.

QWIs, by definition, teach very different skills, but are equally essential. Again, there have always been QWIs that have adopted a certain attitude that translates, to a point, into a more general “image”. That said, we are talking about a cadre that teaches their specific area with the same background training and knowledge as QFIs do in theirs when it comes to aircraft that have any association with weapons (I’ll leave the other aspects of being a QWI alone today). Again, my flying career was certainly created by their efforts. But, again, I would challenge the dogma that only QWIs can teach, assess and supervise specific events.

There are fundamental and obvious similarities between the two disciplines. First, the level of excellence demanded of the “Q” annotation. Second, the need to have real specialists to teach, assess and supervise specific events. Third, the provision of expertise to expand flying operations into new areas. Forth, influencing and guiding future developments in military aviation. I know there are other fields, but that will do for now.

So, now to justify my doubts about ring-fencing events and attributing them to the two disciplines. There is a a lot of crossover in routine flying at all levels outside of the sorties that are traditionally assigned to QFIs and QWIs. Supervisors, for example, with neither “Q” effectively cover both areas, including a huge element of “I”. That “I” is based on the aviator’s ex;erience. Now take this a step further. Yes, I’m going to compare our system to another nation’s. Sorry.

The USAF RTUs (OCUs) teach their students to fly and operate specific types. They teach their instructors to instruct on that type. After that their mantra is that if you can fly and operate an aircraft in all its modes and you are an instructor, you can teach all the modes - from trip one in the aircraft to AAR, to weaponeering, to systems operation, to mission planning, to formation management, etc. And that is what they do. A student can go through the entire course without ever flying with either of our traditional “Q”s. That is not to say that they don’t have their specialists, which remain invaluable, but it does break our dogmas about ring fencing certain sorties. Cheifttp may wish to correct me. And it works, partly due to the point that beardy made here earlier that aircraft are a lot easier now than they were in the past. They are also more complex.

My bottom line is bolleaux to the personal attitudes to either discipline. And bolleaux to the sanctity of either “Q” when it comes to day to day flying BEYOND THE EARLY STAGES OF TRAINING.

That’s enough from me for now, even though I haven’t haven’t offered any real revelations.

Good night, brothers.

P.S. I still think QFIs are trimmers.

And who could forget the enormous bang and the delightful smell of cordite wafting over the cockpit when you pulled the ring of the Chipmunk cartridge starter?

Ah, de Havilland (sigh).

Courtney Mil



Thank you for your detailed insight!

I have often thought we should gravitate towards the USAF Instructor Pilot system. In the good old days of Cold War mudmoving I was convinced that - as an ex-creamy QFI with 750plus hrs of instructional time - I could do a better job of instructing basic weapons than the average QWI. As they told us at CFS: As a QFI you should be able to teach anything you can do yourself in an aeroplane.

What is the difference?

Here we are downwind Bloggs, maintain ….kts. turn finals here, call FINALS/IN HOT, roll out pointing upwind of the runway/target. Aim here and select flap DOWN /GUN ON, flare to land/FIRE, apply power to roll/recover, Flap to MID/Switches Safe, Turn downwind.

Did you ever consider whether that frame of mind had any bearing on how the QWIs treated you? What would your approach have been to a student pilot with that attitude to flying instruction?

Wasn’t suggesting that each could the other’s job, just that there are areas that don’t require such a closed shop.

As an ex-chopperhead, I used to find it great banter material to bring up the subject of creamies with my FW colleagues. Of course creamies do not exist in the rotary world. This is because (really!) hekicopters can kill you in so many different ways, and have so many perculiar habits, that getting your wings at Shawbury is considered a licence to go off and learn to fly a helicopter. It takes many years to really understand what is going on.

I had 4 consecutive flying tours - none under 3 years - under my belt when I attended CFS(H). Even then, I vividly remember a yoda-like Sqn Ldr showing me some of a helicopters behaviour when AP out and allowing it to 'do it's thing'. It was a huge education, even with over 4000hrs rotary - the learning curve when it comes to helicopter principles of flight might get less steep over the years, but it never flattens out.

That's why the best pilots should be sent rotary.:}

Baldeep: Your "creamies do not exist in the rotary world." Please add "now." They certainly did in 1963; my first 7 lessons were with a young Flt.Lt until the mature Flg.Off who had been planned returned from leave. I next encountered the young man when both of us were out on horse-back: He then admitted that he was terrified
to find himself teaching someone as old as me. He had just finished the course; I was 29 years old !! So I told him that I never noticed his age,that he was appointed to teach me and that I knew NOTHING about helicopters so he must have got it right.

Mog,
In the middle of a pitched small arms battle during a Taceval, I heard a Gunner GLO exclaim in his refined tones, as he sniffed the air, “Ah, that’s one of the two best smells known to man: c*** and cordite.”
The GLO funeral this week was an impressive occasion, which you would have enjoyed.

All the ones I flew with assured me they were!

CG

Plus one to that.

Welcome back Courtney - and as you predicted, this might be the first starter for thread drift. After all the good comments and banter related to creamie’s, QFI’s and QWI’s etc, my overriding ‘thinks bubble’ is on the 3 sides to a fence! Surely, it’s a left side, right side and top side? No?

Don't forget your backside.

A few thoughts, if I may, relating to instructing and 'Q' annotations, and please note that these are personal opinions and not stating in any formal document of which I am aware.

There are two aspects to instructing, how to teach and what to teach. I think that CFS and other military instructional training courses (eg QWI) are very good at the 'how to teach' aspects. With respect to 'what to teach', the scope is large and no course can cover everything and no individual can really cover all aspects well, in detail and also improve by gaining experience. I believe that this is why there are separate QFI and QWI qualifications. Some aspects of 'what to teach' that are taught on these courses can be picked up through experience and exposure but that takes far longer and hence the advantages of running the courses. The QWI course covers weapons delivery and tactics whereas the QFI aspects have two different threads ie. teaching generic flying skills from ab initio through advanced training and undertaking type conversion, and these are definitely different subjects.

Back to the thread and 'creamies' ..... They are taught the skills of instruction of flying skills but that training is all that they have to fall back on. They will not have the potentially broader experience of someone who trains as a QFI after one or more operational tours. That is certainly not a criticism but just a factor that needs to be considered. The counter argument is that they may have greater empathy with the students as they have been one very recently.

Many moons ago I did the QWI course on a two seat, single stick aeroplane and then was the pilot QWI on a front line squadron., and most people who did this QWI course followed this path. Therefore, it was not an instructional job per se but on the squadron we managed the weapons training and developed weapon delivery tactics using knowledge that we had gained on the course. However, we had learned the instructional techniques. In a later life I was signed up as Competent to Instruct (later Aircrew Instructor) on 13 different UK military registered types and sent pilots 'solo' in 12 of them but I never did the CFS QFI course. My QWI background plus overall experience gave me the ability to do this. However, what I have never done is to teach someone ab initio to fly as I do not have the knowledge to do that and I feel that this is the real aspect of QFI training and experience that stands alone. But in the other vein I do sometime wonder how many types current QFIs have sent people solo in ....

Easy Street

I was not that naïve. I knew I had to put up and shut up, as the PAIs/ QWIs were assessing the film and could easily get you chopped from the squadron.

It wasn’t until I became a Flt Cdr that I was prepared to be openly critical of some QWI ethics.

In those days I knew on joining my first OCU that QFIs were generally looked down on and ridiculed by many in the mudmoving world - I suspect in many cases because of bad experiences during initial flying training, e.g. their QFI may have had the temerity to suggest that they weren’t yet the world’s greatest pilot. After all, the fact that you are now a fighter pilot proves that the QFI was wrong doesn’t it?

Our senior PAI on my first squadron used to recite loudly to himself “Green onions and QFIs give me the big sh..s” This always within my earshot. A classic bullying technique.

I got my revenge on him. He was useless in air combat and I was able to defeat him easily. He was horrified that an ex-creamy with less than 100 hours on type could do that.