From here
1) What else do they have to fly ?
2) It looks like a great lack of professionalism. Is it that simple ?
I would love to have Air Cadets in France.
Q for our UK friends : Is this system well alive or threatened ? How is it perceived by the british public ? What kind of kids join it ?
https://www.raf.mod.uk/aircadets/
There used to be a network of Volunteer Gliding Squadrons all over the UK, run by volunteers at weekends and holidays providing gliding training. This was on the Viking conventional glider and Vigilant Motorglider. The Vigilant has now gone out of service and there will be 11 squadrons with the Viking glider.
There are also a number of Air Experience Flights at RAF bases across the UK, collocated with University Air Squadrons, which provide flights on the Grob Tutor.
https://www.raf.mod.uk/aircadets/what-we-do/flying-and-gliding/air-experience-flights/
The cadets come from all walks of life, but are some of the most impressive young individuals you could hope to meet. Many of my ex students are now in RAF and airline cockpits across the world. Some will lament recent changes to the Air Cadet organisation, but it has to be remembered that the RAF itself is considerably smaller than the cadets and smaller than ever before, so flying, camp, basing opportunities have naturally evolved as well.
The story behind the scrapping of the Vigilants appears to be that they have an airframe limit on cycles, but it was recently realised that a lot of flights were logged several flights on the same day as one flight, so under-estimating the number of cycles. I don’t know any “insider info” but one might not be wholly surprised if somebody found a crack somewhere… and after Mull of Kintyre and the resulting decade or two of litigation the MOD is pretty cautious. For example after the Tutor mid-air the MOD immediately spent some substantial 5 digit amount on each of 100+ planes to install the TAS6xx TAS plus a Sandel SN3500.
I would be surprised if they had a manufacturer designed lifetime limit and even if, under part NCO they could pretty easily be flying “on condition”. To scrap them is simply a stupid act of bureaucracy unless they really have very valid proof of something being wrong with them.
The Vigilant is a military registered, military variant so the civilian regs are not really applicable and there is no obvious route to civilian registration as I understand it. It was flown throughout its life to a higher MAUW of 908kg vs the 850kg civilian certification and spent its life circuit bashing. At the end many of the fleet were displaying severe belly cracking between the undercarriage legs and the extent / ability to repair of this was unknown.
As an ex- air cadet instructor I was never very impressed by motor gliders as due to safety issues if not flying the cadets spent the rest of the day hanging around the Crewroom idle. Conventional gliders required all the cadets to be involved in launch and recovery of the aircraft and kept them occupied all day.
If the truth of the current situation was told on these pages the writs would be flying like confetti in an effort to hide the facts.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
even if, under part NCO they could pretty easily be flying “on condition”.If there is a cycle limit, then it will in all likelihood be an airworthiness limitation and then you can’t fly on condition, part-NCO or not.
Fatigue have to be taken seriously. An aircraft last 10-20 k hours depending on operation. Then it should be allowed to fly in the eternal sky (or hung up from the roof in an airport 
)
Some aircraft lasts forever, like the Cub, but that’s because every part of the structure is replaceable, being made of steel also helps of course.
Balliol wrote:
There used to be a network of Volunteer Gliding Squadrons all over the UK, run by volunteers at weekends and holidays providing gliding training.
There’s apparently Air Cadets in the Isle of Man, but they don’t fly. Our glider club did offer but they turned it down for bureaucratic reasons. It seems bizarre to have air cadets who will never fly.
With regard to future of the aircraft don’t believe everything you read in the press/on the internet …
These are military registered aircraft and operate on a completely different basis than similar civilian aircraft, no matter that regime is designed for fast jet combat aircraft and is completely inappropriate for composite light aircraft/gliders. System is run by civil servants who have no incentive to push for a more sensible arrangement.
