RAF Cranwell
On the 28th June two cadets made their way down to RAF Cranwell for the Glasgow and West of Scotland Wing annual weeklong summer camp.
After 8 hrs on the coach, we finally arrived at RAF Cranwell. Upon arrival we were greeted by the camp com, Squadron Leader McKay. From there, he gave us our room numbers and we then started to unpack. We then headed to the airmen’s mess for 
dinner, which was then followed by a Health and Safety and Security briefing from the station personnel. Afterwards, we had free time, with the majority of the male cadets away playing football. A 6am wakeup call the following morning got us ready for the church parade, at the stations Church of Scotland parish and some cadets headed off to St. Peters chapel. We then headed off to College Hall for the Camp photo and a tour of the College Hall, which was full of facts and paintings of the great men and women of the RAF and Great Britain. Afterwards, we were then split into two flights and we alternated between Leadership and Navigational SAR Exercises.
Tuesday was proven to be the most challenging day of the camp, as we were challenged mentally and physically. We took part in the stations ‘Macmillan Mile’, along with some of the top officers in the RAF. Just before the walk started we had a fly past from the BBMF Dakota and a quick warm up to the tunes of Amarillo and YMCA. The clothing was CS95’s, and we marched round the ‘orange’ twice, making the officer cadets look mince at drill. And along with marching, there is the familiar song. As it was a station activity the two local schools participated as well, with us singing, it attracted the attention of the children and they marched and sung along with us. After the march we were praised by Group Captain N Wharmby, station commander and an Air Commondore. Later in the day, we headed to the gym for the RAF Motivational Outreach programme. This time we were challenged mentally and we were put into situations where we had our reaction speed tested and a quick ‘brain check’. Afterwards we were getting prepared for the visit to the range.
One of the more exciting days was Wednesday, when we went to the Air Traffic Control tower and the Fire station with a night-ex in full daylight at about 9 o’clock. The visit to the fire station-for me-was interesting as I was recommended to join the RAF as a fire fighter as I was the only one there that could roll up a 60m hose in a straight line, in less than 35 seconds. After the visit to the fire station, we headed to Air Traffic Control. This was a short visit that, as everyone in our flight had visited an ATC tower before. Down in the radar room we watched a typhoon take off from RAF Conningsby and a Belgian Alpha jet made a distress call for an emergency landing. After dinner we headed to the back of the camp for the night exercise, where a peace keeping helicopter was shot down by enemy forces.
Thursday morning had visit to the gym, with CI McNaughton. We had just finished an inter-flight drill competition and we were then told to get changed into sports kit. We headed to the gym and we were greeted by the CI, after stepping in the door of the gym the music started and we had a quick warm-up session for about an hour. Once we finished the warm up session, everyone was lying on the floor. This resulted into an intense 3 hour circuit workout. There were 15 stations; they involved us doing sit-ups, step-ups, bungees, squat thrusts and a whole host of other exercises. The staff got involved as well, with Sergeant McGill, Warrant Officer Andrew, Flight Lieutenant Quinn and the padre all taking part. Afterwards we headed back to the accommodation to get a shower, but Flight Lieutenant Quinn called my name along with, Cpl Harris and Cdt McTaggart. We were selected to get a flight in a King Air from 45 (R) Sqn. After 3 hours of waiting, at 4pm we got our flight in the King Air. During the flight we were greeted by 2 F-15’s from 
USAF MIddenhall and on approach to RAF Marham we had a fly by from 2 Tornado GR4’S. The flight lasted just over an hour and a half and on arrival back at RAF Cranwell we had a fly past by the Vulcan Bomber.
Friday had the visit to RAF Conningsby, to visit the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. The Lancaster, Hurricane, Spitfire, Chipmunk and Dakota are all a part of the BBMF. We had a tour of all the aircraft in the hangar but the attention span of the cadets was short, as Conningsby is the only station in the RAF to house the Typhoons. After the tour we had time to spend in the shop and we then headed back to the bus. Once we arrived back at Cranwell we had free time (Other words, packing and clean up time.). Then Warrant Officer King walked round and said that we were allowed to go out for 2 hours. So we went down to the fire section to hand out the usual awards and to hand the fireman a present for the help they gave us. The awards included best cadet, which I got. We finished off Friday night with a game of Cadet's vs NCO's Volleyball and Football, after the games had finished we headed back up to the accomadation and we headed back to our rooms and then finished off packing.
Overall the cadets who were there kept everyone on a high and most of all everyone enjoyed the banter.
Reported by Cadet John Gordon