**British Armed Forces Discussion Thread**

Captain Planet said:
With the forces this year I have been skiing to Andorra (cost me just £50!), Germany for 2 months on course, skiing to Bavaria next year (probably another £50) and just today I found out I'm off to the States for a month on another course :cool: ...I thought it was about time I got some gucci trips after all the sandy time I put in, 2010 has summed up to be a rather good year :D
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What part of the forces are you in with mate?
 
Well, finished my Practical(Physical) Leadership Development today on my NCO course. And good god it was hard.

8 Man sections, each man carrying 13Kg + Water
8 x 800 Metre Laps on hilly terrain.
Each lap, pick up a new object, lightest weighing around 7Kg, up till the heaviest which was 40Kg.
Half way though we had a lad drop out, so were down to 7 men, and when coming in on our next to last lap, we had to drop the lightest thing to pick up the heaviest.

Then finally, an extra lap with no kit at all, just to finish off.

So overall, including warm-up, a nice 5 mile trashing.

This stuff is awesome :D.
 
Captain Planet said:
With the forces this year I have been skiing to Andorra (cost me just £50!), Germany for 2 months on course, skiing to Bavaria next year (probably another £50) and just today I found out I'm off to the States for a month on another course :cool: ...I thought it was about time I got some gucci trips after all the sandy time I put in, 2010 has summed up to be a rather good year :D
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Opportunities like this is one of the reasons I'm looking into the forces, just to ask though what section are you in? and how did you go about getting all this done? was it like adventure courses?
 
Pfft, whats all this talk about 1mb 'high speed' internets not being fast enough for you. Try being on a ship with nearly 1000 people on it. The 8mb connection i get at home is probably faster than the ships connection shared between all users. Not hotmail, facebook, youtube etc either.
 
Von Smallhausen said:
Thanks for that. :)

I really fancy one of those 617 Sqn jackets.
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Worked with them, lossie is an interesting place.

You don't want a flying jacket though, you want a greatcoat, and leather gloves :D

BlackCoat2k10 said:
Opportunities like this is one of the reasons I'm looking into the forces, just to ask though what section are you in? and how did you go about getting all this done? was it like adventure courses?
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I've been lucky to be honest, and getting my fingers in lots of pies which has lead to me being put up for some good jobs that require travel around the world to complete. The skiing is classed as adventure training which is an essential requirement in the forces (or so they say). I'm sure you realise it isn't always fun and games though; you have to put in some hard graft, prove yourself and 'earn' the gucci bits.
 
Lots of the adventure traing has been stopped due to the cut backs, same with recruiting, we'll probably know more in Oct when they announce where they will make the cuts - until then its going to be near impossible to get a firm offer.
 
AT doesn't have to cost much. I'm going to Wales soon hiking, mountain biking, coasteering and gorge walking, this all costs next to nothing compared to a ski exped or sky diving course. I think it's down to your line management how well they organise your AT because in our books it is mandatory to involve in at least one exped every 2 yrs (although we seem to be managing 1 or 2 trips every one year).
 
not down to line management, its down to the budget holders up very high putting a ban on it - and yes Wales is cheap, but they wont even stretch to that until after they find out whats happening post SDSR. We have had a couple of expeds go out on the back of jobs (but thats for the whole unit of circa 3000 people!)
 
I never get a good deal on adv training, the first time I got any at my unit we went hill walking in cumbria, this involved tabbing miles with 'safety bergans' in combats and boots, so pretty much like going on exercise except for the lack of rifles.

We went swimming later in the week in the sea which was strangely warm, wonder if the fact that we were next to Sellafield had anything to do with that.

I've had much better offers since but I'd rather do my real job than mess about in a canoe.
 
Best AT i did was sail from Greece to Cyprus! Flew from Cyprus to Greece picked up the yaught and sailedd back to Cyprus took 11 days with various top overs! Cost me the grand total of about £100 (money i spent on the p**s at the islands we stopped at)
All came about as i captain purchased a yaught and needed a crew to sail it back. A bank sponsered us paying flights and fuel as long as we wore their t shirts and had some pictures done.
Great times :)

Jay
 
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Im going to wales in november for hillwalking, kayaking and mountain biking, will do me! :P
 
Doesn't seem the budget holders have banned anything then... duff gen Tbird :p

Reference line management; I meant it is up to them to fit it into the annual schedule for the unit. Our unit is quite flexible and do AT in groups of just 20-30 at a time.
 
Well this is as good as any time to post for what might be the last time for a while... Seen as setting off early tomorrow morning to start...

Been a long time coming, the feelings of excitement are slowly turning into nerves :) But looking forward to the good times over the hard times :)
 
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