While specifics have yet to be confirmed, Air Cadet Scholarships, which provide 12-hours of flying with an aim of taking the recipient to first solo, look to be relaunching following an announcement made at last month’s Farnborough Air Show.
According to AOC 22 Group, Air Vice Marshall Cab Townsend, his team have spent the last 18 months looking at how to relaunch the scholarship following its closure when Tayside Aviation – the academy that had been delivering Air Cadet Scholarships for decades – went into administration in April 2023.
In an interview with Air Cadet Media Influencer Cpl Shah, AVM Townsend said: “So, we’ve spent a lot of time over the last 18 months trying to reconfigure what we do to operate flying scholarships for Air Cadets. We had a few problems with the way it was previously and I was really keen to try and get a scheme that enables Air Cadets to be taught by the Royal Air Force flying instructors in the Grob Tutor, so Royal Air Force aeroplane, and take our Air Cadets to a solo standard. And I’m really pleased to announce that after a lot of hard work from Air Cadet HQ, and lots of people like Babcock in industry, that we are now on the cusp of just being able to release a new Air Cadet Pilot Scheme that will be available to Air Cadets from 18 years and over and take them to a solo standard.
“It builds on the enthusiasm we already see from Royal Air Force Cadets, a fantastic organisation that gets youngsters involved in aviation and this really is putting the ‘air’ into Air Cadets. There’s nothing better than flying an aeroplane, but not being flown in an aeroplane like air experience flying – this gets cadets to a solo standard, so they’re flying the aeroplane by themselves. And having done that and benefitted from a flying scholarship when I was younger, there is simply nothing better to entice people to love what they do in terms of aviation and maybe go on to a career in the Royal Air Force.”
Asked when scholarships programme will recommence, AVM Townsend added: “Back end of the summer, applications will be open and I just encourage everybody that is in the bracket and meets the qualification criteria to get their names down on the list.”
