Sgt Creamer gets his marksmanship badge from Flt Lt O'Neill, OC 487 Sqn

Tuesday 24th August was yet another award winning night for one 487 Sqn Cadet. Sgt Creamer was awarded his regional marksmanship award by Flt Lt Brendan O’Neill, OC 487 Sqn.

Sgt Creamer is part of the Sqn’s shooting team which has won the Collins shooting trophy for the past two years. He, and the rest of the 487 Sqn team will shortly be representing the Warwickshire and Birmingham Wing at the regional training day at RAF Wittering on 5th September 2010.

Good luck to him and the rest of the team.

Flying Officer Jennings, Cdt Harvey-Allen, Sqn Ldr Foster


Cdt Harvey-Allen taking the RAF Fitness Test


Cadets in the Sand in Cornwall!

On Saturday 7th August, 31 cadets and 5 staff set off on the long trail down to RAF St Mawgan in Cornwall to attend the second week of the Warwickshire and Birmingham Wing annual camp at the station. Flying Officer Simon Jennings and Cdt Sarah Harvey-Allen from 487 Sqn attended the camp.

Cornwall in August is obviously very busy and all on the coach soon found themselves stuck in traffic jams on the M5. After a very weary day on the roads, all arrived safely at the camp at 1700 and all the camp staff and cadets were soon enjoying their first meal in the Nimrod mess.

Sqn Ldr Foster, camp commandant for the week, introduced all the staff to the cadets on Saturday evening, and he then laid out his plans for the week in terms of training.

On the first full day in Cornwall, all the cadets were taken to Lands End, the furthest point west in the United Kingdom. The cadets were then taken to the National Maritime museum in Falmouth. Not all the cadets travelled to Lands End and Falmouth though, half of them had been selected to go gliding with 626 VGS which is based at Predannack, an airfield just south of Helston. This VGS flies the Viking glider and all had a good day with all the cadets managing to get in 3 launches each.

It wasn’t just gliders that the cadets managed to fly though, also at RAF St Mawgan was a detachment from 3 AEF, normally based at Colerne in Wiltshire. The staff were in contact with the AEF early each morning and this meant that by the end of the week, all the cadets had either flown in gliders at the VGS or in the Tutor at the AEF.

On the Sunday evening, all the cadets and staff were transported to the beach at Porth which is just to the north of Newquay. A great deal of sport was played and the cadets were also tasked with a special project by the staff. They had to find a wet piece of sand and write in extremely big letters, ATC Summer Camp, 2010. The reason soon became clear to them, as Flt Lt Chapman, OC 84 Sqn, flew over in his light aircraft to take photographs of the cadets and the words in the sand. He then put on a fantastic aerobatic display for the cadets, and everybody else on the beach.

The only really bad day in terms of weather loomed on the Tuesday and the planned visit to Flambards was cancelled.

The training continued at a pace during the week with dry weapons training and also weapons handling tests been taken. One of the early highlights of the week was a session with an RAF PTI in the station gymnasium where all the cadets and one member of staff were set the task of passing the RAF fitness test. A good number of both male and female cadets passed the test, but sadly, the member of staff failed miserably!

RAF St Mawgan is home to the Survival, Escape, Resistance and Extraction Training Centre. This is where all fixed and rotary wing aircrew have to come to learn various methods of training in terms of surviving in hostile territories. A visit was arranged during the week to the Survival equipment section where all the cadets were shown survival equipment, and they were also allowed to try on flying suits and helmets. All the staff and cadets found this visit extremely interesting.

Following the visit to the SES, all the cadets and staff were transported to Mawgan Porth to complete a small section of the South West Coastal Path. The scenery was stunning and all enjoyed this great walk.

A day was planned on the range along with visits to the station armoury. The Number 8 rifle and L98A2 were fired along with the L39 Target rifle. A fantastic day ensued with a total of 12 cadets winning their Wing Marksman badges, and 4 winning their Sqn marksman badges. A great deal of coaching was carried out by various members of staff and this seemed to have paid off at the end of the day with this fantastic result. The cadets were allowed to handle a myriad of differing weapons in the armoury, ranging from RPG rocket launchers to Sqn Ldr Fosters own personal favourite, the American Garand rifle.

On the Friday the cadets were taken to the Davidstow Military museum. This is a private museum which was set up to remember both the old RAF Davidstow airfield, but also to commemorate all the services who have served in the Cornwall area.

On the last day of the camp, both flights took part in a drill competition which was judged by Sqn Ldr Mccarroll. It was a really close competition, however, B flight just edged it and came out on top. All the cadets and staff then took part in a final parade where it was announced that B flight had won the overall competition as best flight during the week. All those cadets who had qualified as marksman were also presented with their badges.

Sqn Ldr Foster, Camp Commandant commented, “We have all had a fantastic week at RAF St Mawgan and I would like to thank both the cadets and staff for ensuring that the week was a success. We have completed so much during the week and the highlights have to be the amount of flying the cadets completed, and also the fantastic number of marksman’s badges we were able to give out on the final parade. I would also like to thank all the cadets and staff for working so hard during the week, we have all worked extremely long days, but we have achieved some fantastic results”

Flying Officer Simon Jennings RAFVR(T)
For Sqn Ldr Foster, Camp Commandant