Air Training Corps
| Air Training Corps (ATC) | |
|---|---|
Crest
|
|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Type | Volunteer Youth Organisation RAF |
| Size | 1,009 Squadrons 32,860 Cadets 10,410 Cadet Force Adult Volunteers |
| Part of | Air Cadet Organisation |
| Headquarters | RAF Cranwell |
| Patron | Queen Elizabeth II |
| Motto(s) | Venture Adventure |
| Commanders | |
| Honorary Air Commodore-in-Chief | HRH The Duchess of Cambridge |
| Commandant Air Cadets | Air Commodore Dawn McCafferty |
| Insignia | |
| Ensign |
 |
| Aircraft flown | |
| Trainer |
Grob Tutor Grob Viking Grob Vigilant |
The Air Training Corps (ATC) is a British youth organisation sponsored by the Ministry of Defence and the Royal Air Force. A Full Time Reserve Service RAF officer serves as Commandant Air Cadets at the rank of Air Commodore. The majority of staff are volunteers although some are paid for full-time work. Although many ATC cadets go on to join the RAF or other services, the ATC is no longer set up as a recruiting organisation.
Activities include sport, adventurous training (such as walking and paddle-sports), ceremonial drill, rifle shooting, fieldcraft, powered aircraft and glider flying, and other outdoor activities, as well classification training leading up to a BTEC in Aviation Studies. Week-long trips to RAF stations, or camps offering adventure training or music, allow the opportunity for cadets to gain a taste of military life and often to gain some flying experience in RAF gliders and RAF training aircraft such as the Grob Tutor.
Cadet membership can begin from the start of School Year 8 (England and Wales), or equivalent in Scotland and Northern Ireland. New members will join as a junior cadet (probationer) and can earn positions of increasing responsibility in a military rank structure, as well as having increasing skill and competence recognised in a classification scheme (First Class, Leading, Senior, Master and Instructor). Service as a cadet ends at the age of 20. As of 2014, the ATC numbered 33,590 cadets and 10,430 Cadet Force Adult Volunteers. In addition, there are approximately 5,000 civilian committee members.
Together with the RAF contingents of the Combined Cadet Force, the ATC form the Air Cadet Organisation.
The ATC is part of the Community Cadet Forces.
Air Commodore Sir John Chamier is affectionately known as the "father of the air cadet movement". He joined the Royal Flying Corps (the forerunner of the Royal Air Force) where he served as a pilot in World War I, transferred to the Royal Air Force in 1918 and after retiring from the service in 1929, become Secretary-General of the Air League - an organisation made up of people who wanted to make the British public aware of the importance of military aviation. With the clouds of war beginning to form over Europe, and the personal memory of how young men with only a few hours of training had been sent into air combat only to fall victim to well-trained enemy aviators, he conceived the idea of an aviation cadet corps.
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Wikipedia