What We Do

Picure the scene...

It's dusk. Covertly, you deploy behind enemy lines and set-up a forward operating base in thick woodland. Everything has to be camouflaged to prevent it being seen by enemy reconnaissance patrols - you, your kit and your camp. As the sun goes down, you set about your personal administration - cleaning yourself and your kit and getting some food down your neck. It's going to be a long, cold night. You'll need all the energy you can get.

Cadets being briefed before an exercise

Midnight arrives. After checking your personal camouflage you leave the relative safety of your camp and with maximum stealth, move through the woods to close on an enemy position. It might only be a few hundred meters, but it takes an hour to get there because the smallest of wrong moves could result in your capture.

Finally, you set up an observation post overlooking the enemy position and spend the next few hours watching and noting who is there, what kit they have and what they are doing before slowly returning to your base and passing your information on to the intelligence guys. Good work - at dawn it's of valuable use to a special forces unit who attack the enemy position and neutralize the threat it posed to allied forces.

Don't worry, we're not going to send you to war! This is an example of one of the many exercises that cadets take part in. Each one is designed to test the fieldcraft skills we will teach you such as living in the field (building shelters, cooking and personal hygiene), camouflage and concealment, patrolling, reconnaissance and covert movement.

Cadets are taught the art of camouflage
and concealment in the field

Like the sounds of this? For Senior Cadet Non-Commissioned Officers (Sergeant and above) who are over 17, there is the opportunity to enroll on the Junior Leaders Course. This is a tough course covering leadership, life skills, air power theory and military skills training. Pass the course and you are some way to gaining Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) Level 2 Certificate in Team Leading. Competition for places is as intense as the course itself but one 340 Squadron cadet has already passed the course with flying colours. Will you be next?