Title says it all.

Concise.

May as well end the thread here now all the debating has been done.

Whilst I may be inclined to agree, based on experience, what is the basis for your pronouncement (so that I can argue the toss with the missus when I tell her)…?

Ahh.

I work in Afghanistan and was due to return on leave today, but theyve cancelled the flight. Probably because the onboard tea maid isnt working! It happenns 75% of the time my colleagues fly out, so its by far a one off. Oh well another night in paradise.

Least the weathers nice.

Grammar, please!
The RAF IS a useless bunch…..

PS – I don’t necessarily agree with the sentiment.

Never mind – if it all goes pear-shaped and you need to be evacuated, at least you’ll have the taxpayer to pay for your emergency flight out.

When you say “work” in Afghanistan, are you in the armed forces or are you a contractor of some kind?

Question 2 – can you fly a slow moving target in and out of a war zone (safely)?

🙄

It will only get worse, but don’t worry “The RAF isn’t in crisis”.

Contractors are a useless bunch of amateurs who think the RAF is an airline. FTFY

Actually, if we really want to be pedantic…

“The RAF is a useless bunch of professionals.”

But that doesn’t quite scan right either – something to do with RAF (singular) and bunch (plural).

Maybe…

“”The RAF is an organisation composed of a bunch of useless professionals.”

Well if you’re due to fly into Brize Norton and are going to be on a Hercules, I hope they keep cancelling it so that I don’t get woken at night. Landing at around midday tomorrow would be nice. Failing that next week sometime as I’m not sure when I’ll be wanting to sleep at the weekend.

couldt give a monkeys about grammar. its an internet forum not a book. Im not employed by the military but work for a contractor who in turn works for the military. Not sure how that makes a difference though. No i cant fly a plane bit thats not my job.

I think the correct terminology is the RAF is professional but funded by a bunch of amateurs who assume that it possible to cut the cost of active service substantially without also scaling it down.

is it a summer placement from school?

I work in Afghanistan and was due to return on leave today, but theyve cancelled the flight. Probably because the onboard tea maid isnt working! It happenns 75% of the time my colleagues fly out, so its by far a one off. Oh well another night in paradise.

Well in that case it’s “the Air Transport fleet are a bunch of useless amateurs”.

Get over it – you know the score with RAF AT flights before you go, read the papers or ARRSE, the planes are shagged. I was delayed 5 days on my last HERRICK R&R earlier this year, rubbish but so what, at least you’re not actually working now. Suppose you’re a Bastion dweller anyway… 🙄

Edit: contractor as well. As said above – think the RAF is an airline and barge to the front of the queue for the comfy seats on the charter flights, rather than letting those of us who’ve just been outside the wire getting hot, sweaty, grimy and blown up relax a bit (at least that’s my experience of travelling with contractors). Simple answer is quit whining, it could be so much worse…

no it was a tristar not hercules. not sure i could bear 12 hours in a herc!

couldt give a monkeys about grammar. its an internet forum not a book. Im not employed by the military but work for a contractor who in turn works for the military. Not sure how that makes a difference though. No i cant fly a plane bit thats not my job.

So you’re being paid a decent premium to work in Afghanistan, and get flown in and out by the RAF? You knew you weren’t going to Brussels for a weekend, and that Kabul is pretty much a war zone, so the RAF (who, let’s face it, have loads of spare planes and pilots just knocking about) was your only option?

Dunno why you’re complaining – stuff happens. You can either accept it or change your employment, ‘cos it’s not going to get better anytime soon.

@ creamegg – you dont care about grammar, the RAF dont care about picking you up. the world goes on.

I’d be as nice as possible to the people ferrying me in and out of a war zone tbh..

*edited for bad grammar 🙂

Im not employed by the military but work for a contractor

I hope you’re as cheap as you sound.

Oh well, I’m sure your paycheck will compensate you for your delay, as opposed to the’ service’ people in the same position.

Davetrave: Hi from thetford. How the hell are you? Have a look at the website and spot the new trailbuilding kit. You’ll like 8)

G

creamegg – the issue here really is that you’ve missed the opportunity for a good quality rant. Your title started out well.. it’s almost incoherant… a random bit of CAPS lock and it’d be gold.

Where you’ve fallen short, and as such let down the STW is with the content.

You should’ve sworn, mis-spelt, bemoaned the missed opportunity to do some trivial this weekend. You could’ve pretended that your flight was cancelled in order to bring home ‘the fallen’.

This could’ve been so good…

Why don’t you have another attempt… post it in the bike forum and you’ll get 1/10 just for using the wrong forum. Go…

DaveTrave, if the OP visited ARSSE with that opening line he’d be lauded as a hero just to lure him in so the cognoscenti could then truly flame him for being just another free loading whining contractor.

Creamegg do me a favour and raise this on ARRSE, although give me ten mins to put the kettle on and get the biscuits ready.

Ta

Creamegg – I think thats very unfair of you!

I, for one, do not begrudge our sideways walking brethren an extra night in a five star Cypriot hotel 🙄

Now, ‘scuse ranks, c’mon move along like good self loading cargo or they’ll get the cattle prods out – hang on, is that a penknife you’re carrying there, hand that over, you’re not allowed to fly with dangerous articles, now hand me your Gat while you empty your pockets! 😈

Void – already been going a long time on there:

http://www.arrse.co.uk/now-thats-what-i-call-arrse-1/13439-i-hate-movers-i-hate-movers-i-hate-movers-i-hate-movers.html

Well they certainly couldn’t organise a cover up in a hijab factory;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14146824

Defence Secretary Liam Fox has apologised to the families of two RAF pilots who were wrongly blamed for the 1994 Chinook helicopter crash.

Two RAF air marshals had accused Flt Lts Jonathan Tapper and Richard Cook of gross negligence over the crash on Mull of Kintyre in which 29 people died

All so they didn’t have to admit that the software was crap.

I knew the wife of one of the pilots – to say she was devastated at the time wa san understatement, that it’s taken this long to get the real version of events officially recording is a travesty.

As you don’t pay tax you can’t moan about a service paid for by us tax-payers. It’s a swings and roundabouts thing.

On the plus side, there almost guaranteed to deley my return flight anyway so yeah, swings and roundabouts.

When it comes to aircrew, I concurr, what annoys me even more than the uselessness is the blatant money wasting. I’ve seen them waste thousands of pounds, substantially over paying overseas allowances and staying in hotels whan military accommodation, of a high standard, is readily available, for example in Norway. That particular example involved about 200 people !

Aircraft never seem to break down in shitholes either, Cyprus, Canada or the US will do nicely for a short “all expenses paid” break.

I actually got told once, on an Operational tour, not too expect helicopter casualty evacuation if it was required, nice one, I’ll just bleed to death then – GET A GRIP YOU T***S !!

If anyone else, civilian or military, was as bad at their job as the RAF flying ponces are at theirs we’d have been kicked out ages ago.

Having said that, most of the ground based trades etc are ok.

RAF, is that RYANAIR FORCE, after the privatisation has been announced.

Thet wouldnt even have to alte the branding .

I wasnt having a moan at individuals, (unlike some of the service personnel at the air handling unit), but nothing ever seems to run smoothly with them. Dont know the ins and outs myself but the RAF/government apparently turned down an offer from Virgin to fly all service personnel in and out of theatre in return for parking their planes at Brize. I know which trolly dolly id prefer!

markc
I am RAF aircrew, I have spent a couple of years of my life living in Dusty shitholes.. breaking down at inopportune times..
its a pain in the arse..

I’d rather be flying than sat living it up – in my tent in Basra or the Tenco blocks in Cyprus.. or a hotel (this has only happened once in Lajes, the Azores – and there was no Mil accom available)

I’m an ex crab who currently works with all branches of the UK military. Having seen how the Army operate I doubt they could the job any better given a limited budget, aircraft past their best and the volume of cargo on the air bridge.

Believe it or not the Crabs don’t actually cancel flights just for the fun of it or to inconvenience contractors. Just think it’s another days worth money tax free…..

Look, if you dont purchase speedy boarding, thats how it goes.

Why did you volunteer to work in Afghanistan ? You don’t seem to like it there very much.

I wasnt having a moan at individuals, (unlike some of the service personnel at the air handling unit), but nothing ever seems to run smoothly with them

Quite right too. After all, how hard can it be, organising flights into and out of a war zone? Surely they don’t waste time changing flight details based on some fool spending their days analysing intelligence, assessing risk to personnel or suffer with mechanical problems, logistical hiccups or other priorities….

where did i say i dont like working here?

Tell them all to FOFF creamegg 😉 >bunch of trolls for the most part