I'm currently a civvy 'pointy end' instructor running Phase 3 Q-Courses and I would say that the Phase 2 trainees we receive from Cosford currently fall into two very distinct groups - Mature, common sense filled people who want to learn who make up about 10% of the total, and the other 90% are varying degrees of infantilised "adults" who, despite spending a year in the Military so far, still have no concept of what is expected of an 'aviator' (another great name change) and treat it like they're still at school, not expecting to work at all and being very disengaged during lessons, usually with 'undiagnosed' ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia etc being given as the reasons why they find everything so hard to do, rather than the far more likely cause for most of just being tired from playing xbox/PS5 til 3am every night (keeping others in the corridor awake with their comms chat too) and surviving on Monster drinks through-out the day.
Yeap, when I was last at Marham in 2010 for a Tornado Q-Course, the camp despite being in the middle of nowhere (maybe because of that) was alive with about half a dozen bars, clubs, groups, bowling alley, 'cinema', families bar etc and yet now, despite being rammed with new F-35 people, it's mostly dead at night/weekends. Then there's issues with some of the accommodation being very unreliable (no water/heating etc) even for the SNCO/WO mess, too small of a gym, very few local amenities or nearby pubs etc (20-30min one way to nearest town) and so for people who see this base as their first proper "home" as a new entrant to the RAF, its no wonder they quit so quickly, disillusioned with literally everything about the RAF that they've seen, which is a massive shame.
What trade do you instruct?
That's why i had them redone.