Recent questions in Parliament have brought to light concerns regarding delays in the Forces flying training programme.
Andrew Rosindell, Conservative MP for Romford, sought clarity on the measures taken to address these delays.
In response, James Heappey, the Minister of State for the Ministry of Defence, outlined the ongoing efforts by the Royal Air Force to manage and improve the UK Military Flying Training System (UKMFTS). He stated:
“The Royal Air Force manages the UK Military Flying Training System (UKMFTS) on behalf of Defence and constantly reviews flying training pipeline performance.”
Heappey emphasised the approach the ministry is adopting to balance the need for new pilots with the training process. He further elucidated the measures taken:
“In addressing training delays, end-to-end training pipeline measures are considered, as well as working with allies and partners to examine whether UK pilots could be trained overseas and where we might pool our resources to mutual benefit.”
Over the past year, efforts to improve the UKMFTS training pipelines have been significant. Heappey highlighted:
“…improvements across the UKMFTS flying training pipelines have included: increasing UKMFTS trainee throughput by improving syllabi, training delivery and course sequencing; while also maximising use of pilots being trained on the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training programme in the USA, and a three year agreement with the International Flight Training School in Italy for provision of some training places.“
They need to stop investigating foreign pilot training options and start buying them. We should easily be able to tack a few pilots on to F35 trading in the US or another allied nation.
It is bad where we don’t have the capacity to offer this in the UK. How can Italy afford to do this (offer pilot training to others) or USA but we can’t.
Buy the aircraft and re-hire ex RAF pilots to increase capacity and stop outsourcing what is a key requirement for the RAF to external parties.
That is the problem – there is no surge capacity to right wrongs anymore.
Italy has a NATO flying school for those countries with too small a fast get force to make it worthwhile setting one up.
USA has huge capacity in that regard if you read the comments on the recent Norwegian F35 delivery.
& yet the USAF has a ~2000 pilot shortage …
One of reasons is UK weather, another should be flight restrictions in UK.
Italian Flight school is a Leonardo+Italian military endeavour.
It is Sardegna island that always have been a preferred place for training and military tests. Should note that school have pilots from countries like Japan, Canada, Germany so it is not only from small AF’s
Weather may have some bearing, but the fact is, the T2 Hawk has had major engine problem’s, there are only 28 aircraft at least 5 are on servicing at anyone time and then they go unserviceable. I could go into much more detail, but not allowed.
The serious problems with Bae Hawk also do not help.
I think that’s what the announcement said: that they bought the places. I’m looking forward to a big reduction in those gaps between training courses.
Of course that still leaves F-35B training for pilots who might need to fly from the carriers but the RAF wish they wouldn’t.
Give over and dont push out unsupported claptrap
Would you like to expand on which bit of what I said was unsupported claptrap?
I think he is referring to your last paragraph.
Let him answer for himself, with substantiation, as that seems to be what he demands of others. If he’s read the report on why the F-35 dropped of the end of our carrier he will have found about the flight squadron personnel had not received the necessary levels of training for operations at sea. “Prior to Op FORTIS, 55% of 617 Sqn had previous embarked experience and 77% of the Sqn’s personnel had completed the minimum sea survival training.”“The Lightning Force raised the risk of ‘Training deficiencies creating inability to … meet Op tasking’ on PARMIS and assessed it as… Read more ยป
Well TBF they had had how many months at sea on the job before an unfortunate mistake by one crewman cost us the plane!
It’s not about that, Jacko; I was just citing where the information came from. It’s about training. 809 Naval Air Squadron hasn’t even stood up yet, and is expected to be at least 6 months late, but the FOC date in 2025 has not been moved.
19 months from now, we are told 24 UK F-35Bs will embark on CSG 25 to the Pacific. Two full squadrons. Will we be in the same position as CSG 21, where nearly half the flight crew have never embarked a carrier before an eight month deployment?
How did it ever come to this ๐
It came to this with the purchase of a minimal number of T2 hawks and other training aircraft that replaced previous aircraft. 10 T6 replaced 100 odd Tucanoโs. People saw this coming years ago there was only enough training places to just cover the amount of pilots needed. Even then it was tight. One thing goes wrong, few pilots drop out and thereโs no extra to get numbers back up. 3 years it should take to get a pilot to a squadron. Some cases itโs taken over 10. Leaves a lot less time for a pilot to actually fly in… Read more ยป
4 more Texans were also ordered after this story
As for numbers this story covers it plus more detail of how it works, at the end they said even back in 2020 that it wont be enough
“During 2020, the squadron will build to a capacity of six classes being in-house at any given time. Each will comprise six students, the number deemed optimal. As one class graduates, a new one arrives โ this schedule is currently deemed appropriate to maximise the pipelineโs capacity. “
https://www.key.aero/article/texan-time
Honestly mate theses people who do the planning ๐
The tories have demolished our armed forces in 13 years , shame on them.
But we are still the 5th most capable and powerful Armed Force’s on the planet. So not completely demolished.
I’d love to believe that but we can’t even get the assault ships running , we really need to get our head out of our asses 73,000 troops is a farse and the elephant in the room not replacing warrior ,not to mention the CH2 replacement in woeful numbers , wake up!!!
It isn’t just about numbers. And it’s not about if you want to believe it or not. We are the 5th most capable, according to the global firepower annual review. Up from 8th last year out of 145 countries.
So because we’ve underfunded & under equipped our pilot training program, we expect allies to do for us what we should always have managed ourselves? It will be good when we get the new Aeralis trainer. How is it we no longer shine at so many things we pioneered & perfected?
Or we could outsource it to a private company, get a shoody service but make more Tory mates very rich-again.
Because journalists. In the past say 100 years ago, the Western world was fully into building, creating, inventing. Now it is into distributing, pronouns, genre or whatever fashion du jour etc…
‘when we get the Aeralis trainer’. good luck with that ๐
My uncle learned to fly fast jets in Canada in the late 50s, so the RAF was outsourcing even then. It was a great programme.
What a load of “pipeline” bulls..t. Words, words and more words and never any action. Almost every programme in the forces is either delayed or has been cut.
๐
๐ there really can be no excuse , no evidence as in numbers was provided from this ministers waffle to prove that training has improved , so can only assume its still declining
Sad but true. Incompetence strikes again! ๏ปฟ๐ ๏ปฟ
We are spending ยฃ2.35Bn upgrading Typhoon. That is one project that hasn’t been cut. RAF new pilot’s have used overseas training for years. Its nothing new. We have trained, and continue to train personal from a very large number of countries at all levels across our Armed Force’s. Not everything is doom and gloom.
What a complete mess the politicians and senior RAF officers have made of what was previiusly an internationally-renowned flying training setup. They all wanted to privatise it, the Treasury and MOD accountants, the Labour politicians, the RAF seniors, because there was no money to replace the ageing fleet of Tucanos etc. So another PFI, where the contractor buys the aircraft and charges the MOD through the nose for 30 years. And of course they all agreed to reduce the number of aircraft to the absolute minimum to keep costs down. The problem on fast jet trainng seems to be getting… Read more ยป