SCOTLAND & NORTHERN

IRELAND AIR CADETS

REGIONAL NEWSLETTER

ISSUE 1/2015

Camp Eligibility - As

ACP 237 states, there is

no lower age limit for

Cadets attending at UK

camps as long as they

are enrolled and have

First Class status. How-

ever for overseas camps

Cadets must be aged at

least 15.

In This Issue

Radio Controlled Fly-

ing

423 Elgin Sqn

Parent’s Evening

327 Sqn Save Christ-

mas

NI Wing Bang on Tar-

get

161 (Ullapool ) DF met this old Gent while fundraising at their Village hall

It’s goodbye from him and hello from me!

I’m sure you know by now that Sqn Ldr John Walker retired from Uniformed Service on 31/12/14 after almost 45 years in uniform. On 1 January I took over the role of Regional Media Comms Of-ficer and I’ve also taken over the role of Wing Media & Comms Officer for South East Scotland Wing having been DepMCO for both posts for a number of years. I plan to continue producing Regional Newsletters but I rely totally on Wings and Squadrons across Scotland and Northern Ireland for the material to publish. So please send me material which I can publish and pass on to HQAC for publication.

You can email material to media.sni@aircadets.org

We have a Regional Facebook page and I have a Twitter ac-

count and you can follow us at:-

https://www.facebook.com/aircadetssni

https://twitter.com/RegMCOSNI

Are you ready for 2015 and year packed with a huge range of activities and challenges? If you enjoy being an Air Cadet why not share your experiences by bringing along a new re-cruit to your Squadron.

North East Scotland Wing Announce Best Squadrons - The winner of the 2014 MacRobert Trophy is 875 (Westhill) Sqn. Runners-up are 1297 (Stonehaven) and 1990 (Ellon) Sqns. 875 (Westhill) Sqn will now go forward to represent the Wg in the Regional Efficiency Trophy. All 3 Sqns will be invit-ed to attend the annual MacRobert Trophy Presentation Pa-rade.

Northern Ireland Marksman is bang on target

On 15 Dec 14 the Council for Cadet Rifle Shooting made a selection to form the 2015 British Cadet Rifle Team that will travel to Canada. There were only 18 cadets selected from across the Cadet Forces, which included our own Cpl Magill. Well done Cpl Magill, NIW - Good Luck in your Trg prior to travelling to Canada later this year!!

COMING SOON

Next month will see the Regional Permanent Staff Team (RC, ARC & RRM) start their Annual Formal Inspections of the Wings and also inspect the top Sqn in each Wing as part of the Regional Sir A Lees Trophy Competition.- The top Sqn in SNI Region will then be inspected by CAC in the summer, along with the other 5 Regional winners to see which Sqn is the top Unit in the ATC, winning the Sir A Lees Trophy. Good Luck everyone!

New Year Honour for former ARC Our recently retired Assistant Re-

gional Commandant was awarded

an Air Officer Commanding No 22

Group Commendation in the 2015

New Year Honour List .

The commendation read:-

Sqn Ldr Eddie Carr Retd was a

former Air Cadet of (1192

(Kirkcaldy) Sqn, who also passed

his solo Gliding Scholarship at 662

(Arbroath) VGS, prior to joining the

RAF aged 18. After an excit-

ing career in the RAF (1964-96),

travelling around the globe within

the Logistics Branch he became

an Air Cadet permanent member

of staff; firstly, as Wing Admin Of-

ficer with Dundee & Central Scot-

land Wing (1996-2008) changing

roles to the Assistant Regional

Commandant (SNI) in Oct 08, retir-

ing from the post in Jun 14 after

completing 50 working years in the

light blue RAF uniform!!. Eddie has

not given up the blue uniform! as

on retiring as the ARC he took up

a RAFVR(T) Commission and is

the Adjutant on 662 (Arbroath)

VGS.

Well Done Eddie on a fantastic

achievement from all associated

with SNI Region Air Cadets!!

Sqn Ldr Carr receiving a retirement gift from OC SE Scotland Wing at a recent Dining Out Night

Just a few of the activities undertaken in 2014 - so share the fun and recruit a friend!

Want your pictures

and stories pub-

lished?

We are always on the

look out for material

that will show Air Ca-

dets , Squadrons,

Wings and the Region

in the best possible

light. Send your article

to the Regional MCO. If

you send pictures they

need to comply with

the requirements of

ACP 50. This is not dif-

ficult. The size of your

picture is important. If it

l less than 250Kb in

size they really are not

much use for publica-

tion, if it is over 2Mb it

will probably not get

through Bader email .

1.0 - 1.5MB is a good

size for digital photos

Send stories and pic-

tures to:-

media.sni@aircadets.org

The Scotland &

Northern Ireland Re-

gional Field Day will

take place on

6 Sept 2015

The Regional PR and

Photographic Compe-

tition will take place

on that day.

Parents evening at 423 Elgin Squadron Reviewing Officer and principle guest Chief Superintendent Mark McLaren area commander Aberdeen-shire and Moray reviews the cadets of 423 Squadron (Elgin) and presents awards during the evening. Also AWO Nigel Bodiam received the Cadet Forces Medal from Wg Cdr Christine Copsey for 12 years service and his son Cadet War-rant Officer Ed Bodiam received his warrant.

Congratulations to Cdt FS Ross Ewing, Cdt Cpl Hattie

Colwell and Cdt Eilidh Turnbull, all from 1743 (Crieff) Sqn

who have been selected to represent the Corps in 2015 as

part of the Air Cadet Organisation National Marching Band.

The Band will have two training camps in 2015 in order to

prepare for various high profile events. In addition to this, Cdt

FS Ross Ewing has been selected to play euphonium with

the Air Cadet Organisation National Concert Band, who will

perform in their annual concert in Whittle Hall, RAF Cranwell

British Forces Broadcasting Service Cadet of the Week Think

you know someone who deserves to win? Open to all cadet forc-

es, email aimee@bfbs.com with your nominations.

Contact Us

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RegMCOSNI

327 Save Christmas! On Monday 22nd of December many areas of Kil-

marnock woke up to Severe flash flooding, One of the worst effected areas

was the towns Queens Drive Retail Park, where businesses such as B&Q,

Currys, Next, ASDA and Royal Mail.

With Christmas only a few days away, Royal Mail is at is busiest time of year

and the flooding could not have come at a more inconvenient time. All roads

to and from the delivery office where flooded resulting in no deliveries to cus-

tomers who are desperately waiting for there Christmas presents to ar-

rive.........Until.........

327(Kilmarnock) Sqn Kindly Opened up its doors and let Royal Mail move in.

The Parade hall was turned into a make shift sorting office with royal mail

employees working hard to ensure that the mail and packets got delivered

that same day.

The Parade Square accommodated 28 hire vehicles and 4 7.5 ton trucks.

The whole operation was a Success and Royal Mail passed on their grati-

tude To Flt Lt J Downie and Sgt (ATC) M Docherty for their help through out

the course of the day,

As can be seen from the screen shot below the 327 Sqn article on the Re-

gion’s Facebook page achieved 325 “Likes” with a “Reach” of almost 13,000

Screen shot from S&NI Region Face book pages

Cadet Training Safety Precautions (CTSP) - Edition 2014 The ACO HQs will receive a

supply of the CTSPs in Feb 15 and each CFAV will be issued with one, which must be

carried when on ACO duty.

South East Scotland Wing Blue Eagle Camp – Barry Buddon– Dundee – 25/26th October 2014 Radio Controlled Flying

This event was organised by the South East Scotland Wing staff with a specific request that model flying would be one of the activities.

The Wing Flying & Gliding Liaison has an RC and aero modelling remit and an early first move was to appoint a deputy to be responsible for the aero modelling project, so whereas before, we in the Scottish Aero Modellers Association were driving the project, there is now a push to encourage as many squadrons as possible to become involved and that can only be a good thing for all interested Cadets. There is an added bonus that many SAA members have become CI’s themselves so it’s defi-nitely a win-win situation.

Despite the fairly high winds on the Saturday, Blair Nicol and I flew a demo flight to show how the buddy box system works. It was obvious that no tuition could take place as we were both quite chal-lenged by the weather to keep the model in the air and in one piece, so we retired to the classroom facility laid on by the ATC after thawing out in Dundee Model Aircraft Club’s (DMAC) dry and warm club hut.

As the weather began to look a bit iffy during the previous few days, Colin Nicol (RFO) asked me to bring a few engines along to give a short talk - and Blair and Paul brought two flight simulators along which were very popular with the Cadets, but Colin also decided to take along an unbuilt trainer kit which was an absolute brainwave because once I had exhausted every detail on engines and they all had a few shots on the simulators, we then brought out the kit which was identical to the one we had demonstrated to them at the field on Saturday morning.

This filled the rest of Saturday for them, and it was completed and assembled on Sunday morning and whilst it was short of a few items to enable flight, we were able to take it round to a sheltered part of the block, and successfully gave the new engine its first run - a great result which occupied the ca-dets right up to the time they were tasked with cleaning up the dorms and preparing to break camp on Sunday.

The look of delight on Cadet faces as the engine fired up was a joy to behold and is one of the great rewards of this work. All of them were heard discussing their next moves when they returned to their squadrons, and it was obvious that their CO's are going to be put under very positive pressure to as-sist the linking with local model flying clubs in their various areas.

Another aside occurred on Sunday as the Kayak group were in a position where they could scarcely lift their Kayaks down from their transport racks, so they asked if they could join our group on Sunday and enjoyed the simulators too. Sunday’s weather was actually worse than Saturday with very high winds which were still going strong when we broke up around 2pm!

So despite the fact that we didn't get much flying done due to the high winds, they were able between that one demo flight where they saw the 'buddy box' system working (albeit with two experienced pi-lots), to actually building a model themselves, they had the best weekend possible under the circum-stances.

Grateful thanks to the Army and committee of DMAC for offering their great facilities to us for the weekend. Thanks also to Flt Lt. Tom Gray, Lesley & Colin Nicol, CI’s Blair & Paul, Willie Young, Bill Grimsley, from a bunch of very happy youngsters who had a great weekend despite the weather. The organisers at ATC H/Q even laid on commemorative hats suitably inscribed. A nice gesture for those who gave up their weekend for the project.

Our thanks go to the Dundee Model Aircraft Club committee for offering the DMAC field and facilities to the ATC project at Barry Buddon, and for the personal help given by Alex Smith on the Saturday. Without this sort of help and cooperation, these weekends simply would not be possible.

Photos and Article by CI Don Imrie

RC MODEL AIRCRAFT MODULE BLUE EAGLE CAMP 2014

WEST SCOTLAND WING ATC SUNDAY PARADE 1 Feb 2015 - DUMFRIES