Tarmaceater:
If RAF personnel are not deployed or mobilised , the officers arrange “ Training and leadership courses “ abroad, this will be skiing in Europe , river rafting in the Ardeche valley in the South of France or hiking in California, on the tax payers bill .
Just Google 4624 Movements Squadron RAF Brize Norton , if you wanted to get a cheap flight to the Ascencion islands for turtle spotting then connect there to the Falklands .
The military skills courses were good fun , it’s a knockout with the Royal Navy or the Army for a week , in Germany or Holland .
Wow, so this is what we really spend our defence budget on.
Well that should make Russia happy next time we threaten to beat them up
The trips are called Jollies . It is also well known for aircraft to be sabotaged on purpose by breaking something on the aircraft and the parts needed have to be flown in , this could take a while depending on what is broken/missing or damaged .
The above would only happen in a warm and sunny location, such as Belize or the Caribbean but never happened in a cold and inhospitable location, where they can’t wait to get out from .
Riddlemethis:
Yes you are correct it is DVSA, just a typo sorry.
I’m not quite sure that physical fitness due to a young age in the armed forces has anything to do with ability to drive.
Am i missing something here ? Does the ability to do 50 star jumps mean i can drive better ?
If so that must be why i failed my test, I must sign up.
Yes I imagine they would be quite well rested. I worked at an RAF base once implementing software, and when I asked what all the guys sitting around actually did i was told “If they aren’t deployed in Theatre (their favourite word) they are either painting fences or watching ■■■■” - That was at RAF Lytham btw.
Again - it appears to have little to do with driving ability.
A while back I was interested to know what the pass rates are like for LGV. Turns out information is released each year broken down into various categories for analysis, including by age, gender, test location. The peak pass rate is in the twenties for men every year and for women the peak persists until slightly older.
In my opinion if you take a selection of candidates from a young age group who have been through more strict medical screening, physical tests and who are essentially paid to train, then the pass rate would probably be even higher than the peak. I totally stand by that, but if you have a different opinion on that, fair enough.
However, this is passing a test. Being a good driver is entirely up to the individual after passing the test and we all know that young drivers have high insurance, which is for a reason.
I failed CE twice. After the second fail I got the feeling I just can’t drive, even a car probably.
I’m very grateful to Pete who spent a couple of hours with me helping to understand the reversing after my fail so I could head home with some hope that I’m not that useless.
However, I just can’t come back to PSTT …
It certainly is. I tried CE in an artic 2016 and didn’t get much reversing practice. Not surprisingly I failed (not with PSTT). I didn’t have the cash to attempt it again until 2019 and that was only because I was 55 and could cash a small pension. I was financially desperate as there was little rigid work in the area I live but plenty of artic work.
For what it’s worth I would say drawbar is the better route to consider. One is an experienced rigid driver and then one is just towing a trailer - there is enough to fail on with that. I have my own twin axle car transporter and the drawbar trailer behaves the same - I don’t think I did one shunt in my training week. Time was devoted to other matters that I needed to improve on. An artic trailer has completely different handling and takes a while to master. Once you’ve passed a reputable company should send you out with an experienced driver and one “grows into it”. I found myself going into London in the first few months on my own and I absolutely pulled my hair out - now I love it. London is a demanding place to drive forwards and backwards. Some folk maybe find it easy from the beginning but I didn’t. Now a year later like many I don’t think anything of it.
The training and test is just 20 hours (think mine was 16 at PSTT) so little time and artic reversing is worth avoiding until you have time to devote to it.
SquireT:
Well all booked in for the 1st Feb, 2hrs warmup in the truck before hand will request many a pull over on the left to make sure I work the nerves out on that!
Good shout on the kalms, helped before keep them in the car handy!
Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk
Good luck buddy and thanks for message on my last post.
We will both get there in the end… just got another potential lockdown on the way
SquireT:
Well all booked in for the 1st Feb, 2hrs warmup in the truck before hand will request many a pull over on the left to make sure I work the nerves out on that!
Good shout on the kalms, helped before keep them in the car handy!
Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk
Good luck buddy and thanks for message on my last post.
We will both get there in the end… just got another potential lockdown on the way
Thanks bud, your welcome, yeah we will get there eventually I’m now already in lockdown in Scotland and while travel for education and travel is still legit, I can’t see the tests centres being open again anyway on the 1st [emoji20]
Mate, don’t worry.
I normally take 3 goes to pass anything.
It took me till the FOURTH attempt to get my Class 2 !!
It’s a pain, it’s expensive, and takes up ■■■■■■ time but hey, life’s for Livin’ right?
Forget about any plans after your test. Take away all pressures apart from the test.
Stay close to your school, they know what you are going through.
Hey, the amount of CE tests that are dropping like flies just proves that “it could be you”
These are not “easy” ■■■■■■ tests and when you pass, it worth a little celebration.
Until then save your quids and keep on truckin’ to the next test.
Remember the two beautiful words: " [zb] it"!!
I know it’s a pain in the neck but what can you do, except listen and improve…?
Good luck!!