Banchory Air Cadets

This weekend 9 cadets from the Squadron successfully completed their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh final expedition. The expedition took place in the area around the Linn of Dee and Derry Lodge with the cadets camping overnight at Blackburn Cottage. Despite the wet weather over the past few weeks the cadets were only caught in very occasional showers with the majority of the weekend sunny and warm.
Well done to everyone for completing it and hope to see you continue on to the Silver level of the award!

This weekend we have 9 cadets out on their Bronze D of E expedition. Day 1 complete in great weather!

North East Scotland Wing ran an Activity First Aid course this weekend, and staff from Banchory squadron were involved in every aspect.
FS Andy MacDonald was one of two instructors delivering the course to cadets and staff from across the region. Andy is recently approved to deliver the course and was doing so under the eye of Sqn Ldr Derek Nutten, the Wing First Aid officer, as part of the process of being able to eventually deliver the course unsupervised.
He was joined for... the weekend by the squadron’s officers who were students on the course. Flt Lt Matt Horne, OC 2367 Sqn, was taking part as a “refresher” to renew his existing first Aid qualification and to validate his Adventure Training qualifications that we will be using over the summer. For our Training Officer, APO Graham Montgomery, this was his first “proper” adult first aid course, having previously held HeartStart.
Completing the set was WO Rob Bruce, who swanned in on Sunday lunchtime to join the team of assessors, whose role it is to provide an independent check and ensure that the students come up to the standards required by St John Ambulance, who control the AFA material. Rob is a regular assessor Wing AFA courses and hopes to become qualified to be able to deliver the course when the opportunity arises.
We are pleased to say that both of our students passed successfully, as did the others who were assessed this weekend.
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Good Morning Ladies & Gents. The Civilian Committee will be meeting on Thursday evening at 8.30pm in the squadron building and would like to invite you to join us as the committee is open to all adult family relatives & friends of our cadets. This is our final meeting for the year in which we will set the date for holding our annual BBQ & AGM. The civilian committee are in place to work along side the ATC staff, looking after the finances and providing requested support to... the squadron. Without the civilian committee, the squadron would not be able to provide the activities available for our children, or even open each Monday & Thursday evening. If you have 45 minutes to spare on Thursday evening, immediately before collecting you child from cadets, please do come along to join us. We would like to meet you all and have more members to provide support for our cadets. Looking forward to meeting you. Alison McEwan, Chairperson
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We recently welcomed the Wing Training Officer, Sqn Ldr Whitford, to complete a Method Of Instruction (MOI) Assessment for FS Iona McBeath. FS McBeath passed the assessment with flying colours and has now been awarded her Instructor cadet lanyard. The evening also provided an opportunity for Sqn Ldr Whitford to promote one of our staff members. Congratulations to now FS Andrew MacDonald!

Massive congratulations to cadets A Birch, L Birch, S Bull and A Wlodarz for an impressive medal haul after the weekends Inter Wing Athletics. Between them they managed to win 8 Gold and 3 Silver medals which helped the Wing to place 2nd in the final standings and 2367 was named as the 2nd best squadron on the day. Hopefully more success to follow as the 4 look to go on to the Inter Region competition in June. Best of luck!

It was a beautiful day at the Crathes Vintage Car and Motorcycle Rally. Unfortunately, that was last year; drizzle was our companion for the 2019 event today as cadets and staff from the squadron were at work again assisting with the car parking.
In the end, the weather was not as bad as it had been forecast but it was still enough to keep many of the exhibitors away, despite record pre-registrations. The number of visitors was also lower than hoped which made for a less hectic day for us but which was still a disappointment. But this is Scotland and these things are to be expected. It is a fantastic event and we will be back next year to assist again.
Thanks to the cadets and staff who dug out their waterproofs and gave up their time to assist.

Today, 3 cadets and 2 staff members from the squadron attended the Annual Pipe Band Championship in Banchory to assist with running the car park, as well as to run a small squadron PR stand. The weather for the day was bright, warm sunshine with a slight cool breeze.
The event saw a large turnout and by half past 11 a second overflow carpark was opened to provide extra space. However, the good weather meant a much larger number of visitors than expected and an hour later we approached the event organisers to ask if they could open up a third field for car parking, much to their amazement.
The steady flow of traffic coming and going and the managing of 3 separate car parks kept the cadets on their toes and provided useful experience for future car parking events. Well done to those involved.

Today a team of eight cadets represented the squadron at the Wing athletics competition and managed to take home a total of 13 Gold, 7 Silver and 2 Bronze medals. The impressive medal haul resulted in the squadron finishing 2nd overall with Cadets Anna and Lydia Birch placing joint first in their age category to take home the Class D shield. Fantastic effort from all involved!
More photos to follow!

A selection of photos from the wing athletics competition.

Three Banchory cadets visited Tayside Aviation in Dundee yesterday for a flight in one of their Piper Warrior III aircraft.
The flight was provided as part of the Flying Aces scheme: a collaboration between Tayside Aviation and The Robertson Trust to provide flying opportunities to Air Cadets across Scotland, and we were one of several cadet parties flying that day. We arrived at Tayside Aviation’s Dundee Airport headquarters just before noon to meet with the pilot. The Warri...or is a four-seater, single-engined propeller aircraft use for pilot training and private hires, so Sgt Anna Benton and Cpl Nathan Mitchell settled into the rear passenger seats and let Cdt Amy Hall manoeuvre into the front left behind a set of controls. The pilot settled down into the right-hand seat and soon had them heading towards the runway to start their trip.
The weather had decided to behave itself, with a high-pressure area giving us warm, stable conditions but with a light haze affecting visibility. While another group of cadets down from Montrose decide to take a look over their home town, our aircraft headed in the opposite area and took a look at the Forth Bridges and Rosyth area instead. The flight lasted for around an hour and they were soon back on the ground and parking up.
Our thanks to The Robertson Trust and to Tayside Aviation for providing this opportunity for the cadets, and of course thanks to all those who worked to make it happen. We are grateful to be able to have these flying opportunities alongside the Air Experience Flying at Leuchars, and the Gliding at 661 VGS RAF Kirknewton which is now gathering momentum. Some cadets could also find themselves back in Dundee on an Air Cadets Pilot Scholarship if they are fortunate enough to be selected: Tayside Aviation are the sole providers for the ACPS.
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The lighter nights and a respite from last week's rain meant that we got the first sports session in the squadron field for this year, so it was time to drag out the tags for a quick game of Tag Rugby before heading down to Banchory sports hall for the second half session of indoor sport.
By May we should be outdoors for the whole evening, weather dependant of course, just in time for the Midges to make an appearance.

On the 27th October 2018, a cadet team from this squadron became the ATC National First Aid Champions. Today, a new squadron Cadet First Aid team took their first steps toward perhaps repeating that achievement when they won the North East Scotland Wing first Aid competition at Gordon Barracks.
Cdt Andrew Wood has been here before, serving as runner in the squadron team that won the 2018 wing competition. Although he did not compete at a higher level last year, he took the st...ep up to be this year’s team leader, with his sister Katie joining cadets Archie Noble and Keila Kinnaird to complete the team. We only managed to confirm the team on Thursday evening and thanks must go to Sgt Iona McBeath for assisting with their preparation before the weekend as well as acting as a casualty in the team scenario
Our staff were in use on the day too, with Lt Andy Miller taking the lead on the team scenario, Flt Lt Matt Horne and WO Rob Bruce assessing individual scenarios, and Sgt Andy MacDonald assisting at the Cross Hall. This did mean that we weren’t able to get any photographs or video footage of the actual First Aid in action this year.
The competition itself followed the usual format, with a team scenario being followed by individual scenarios for all team members taking place in the Wing HQ building. After competing, teams were corralled in the Cross Hall where concurrent activities took place, including a CPR challenge using a qCPR-equipped manikin.
With just 8 Cadets teams and one Young Adult team participating we finished well ahead of time. Event staff collated the scores and were ready to announce the winners. 1990 (Ellon) Sqn, as the only Young Adult team, unsurprisingly took the Milk Jug trophy and from what I saw of them during the individual challenges, would have put up serious competition had they had any. The Cadet top-three was announced in reverse order, with the team from 102 (Aberdeen Airport) named as runners-up and securing a place at the Regional competition later in the year. The announcement of our team as the winners and recipients of the Collie Quaich came as a very pleasant surprise in what seemed at times as a close-run competition.
Congratulations of course to our team and to the other competitors. This does mean that our work is not finished as we now need to prepare for the next stage of the competition and show that North East Scotland continues to be a serious challenger in the world of Competition First Aid.
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Last night was the final parade evening as a cadet for CWO Alexandra McEwan. Alex has been with the squadron for almost 7 years and will age out on her 20th birthday which is this Sunday the 7th April. Over the course of her 7 years with the squadron Alex has been involved with squadron teams competing at Wing, Region and Corps competitions. She has attended a variety of camps including UK based camps at RAF Boulmer and RAF Leeming and overseas camps in both Cyprus and German...y. Some of Alex's cadet highlights include being appointed as a Lord Lieutenants Cadet In 2017 and also receiving an Air Commodores Commendation in 2018. Alex will be continuing on with the squadron initially as a Civilian Instructor before progressing Into uniform. A big thank you to Alex for her hard work over the past 7 years and we look forward to welcoming her to our staff team.
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Reminder that we are holding our first open evening of the year tomorrow from 7.30pm to 9.00pm at the McCombie Cadet Centre.
Check out our year in review video from 2018 to see some of the activities we have to offer!

This morning 9 cadets from the squadron travelled to 663 AGS at RAF Lossiemouth to complete training on the Part Task Trainer (PTT). The morning started with a ground school briefing which covered the basics of how an aircraft flies and how it is controlled. The next stage is synthetic training on the PTT. The PTT is a replica of a Tutor cockpit complete with controls, instrumentation and screens to display the simulated environment. While in the PTT the cadet is shown the effects of the controls by an instructor, and then tries the controls for themselves while carrying out basic manoeuvres.
Throughout the course of the day we had 7 cadets complete their Blue training and 2 complete Bronze with 5 of our cadets being awarded their Blue wings after previously completeting their first flights down at 12 AEF.

Help us spread the word!
On the Thursday 28th March we will be hosting our first open evening of 2019. The evening will be a fantastic opportunity to find out first hand about all the Air Cadets has to offer.