Military

[Jezza-7]

Just been reading a few post's on here and it seems like there are a few people serving in the armed forces.

Is there many on here?

Im an AET in the Royal navy at RNAS Yeovilton.

[dub-disaster]

I'm thinking about joining the RAF, as an officer hopfully still toting with the idea I'm going for an interview Monday .
Would you recommend it? Wouldn't mind having a proper chat with you Saturday about it would be helpful in making my mind up!

[shaun_89]

Im a weapon tech in the RAF
Posted to the middle of nowhere aka marham

[sinister polo]

iv just signed up for the navy, waiting to find out when my training starts!

im going to be a weapons technician on a sub!

how do you find being an aet? im assuming that means u work on plans?

[hardchargin40]

9 years as a Air Avionic Technician, currently on the FJWOEU & TES at Coningsby, working on the Tornado GR4 and Harrier GR9 (and previously the Tornado F3 and Jaguar before we got rid of ours).  Previously at Marham.

I wont start RAF-Navy banter on here though....

[dub-disaster]

Well what's it like hardcharging?? What's the pay like cause although they pay less than the job I'm in now there's more benifits opertunity to travel and the cost of livng is less aswell isn't it? How much free time do you get? Is it very strict or does it relax a bit as you've been there a while?? What does it compare like to being a civilian, I currently work at Westlands where they make the eh101 merlin and the lynx copters so I either want to go in as air crew or maybe a technician what's life like as a tech ??
Sorry for so many questions just wanna now as much as possible before I commit myself as I don't want to regret leaving my reasonably cushy job!!

[hardchargin40]

What type of officer do you want to be I suppose is the first question?  Admin, Ops, fighter controller, engineering officer, or Pilot/Nav if your under 24, etc.

Ive looked into it all, as currently, we've a massive lack of promotion so moving to the dark side or going airman aircrew would be better for me, pay wise and pension wise.

For money, (and better pension), being lorded over and sucked upto... be an officer.  
If your interested in engineering, defo be a engineering officer.. although be aware you are a manager of say 150 people, you do not get hands on.  You'll do desk tours and sqn tours as part of your Jengo, and the 2R1 is bedtime reading for you as as getting reds and greens auths. Jengo needs to have a degree/HND before though.  Fighter controller is controlling airspace both from the ground and up in AWACS/Nimrods.  You'll get posted every two so years.

Pilot/Nav really is the best job in the world... Best of the Best.... for flying... most are public school boys though, rah rah and all that, some are really really sound though.  The other part of their job, planning for hours and hours for your hour and half sortie.  Fingers crossed though, im getting a back seater trip in one of our tonka's this month or next.

Admin/Ops officers get loads of time off for sport/expeds.  P.E.D.Os (Phys Trng Off - yes they are officially called PEDO's, lol), you do more admin than sport (pedo's have been branched into admin now aswell).

You'll do plenty of time in afghan too.


If you want to winge about not being paid enough compared to adminers and chefs, and getting treated like crap and have a massive workload... be a techie.  im a techie.



I dont live on base, so I hardly see uniform... just stays in my locker.  The RAF is not strict, well it is and isn't.  You play the game if that makes sense, you'll always get mini-hitlers but generally its cool.  As long as you dont piss off the feds, pay respects to officers (salutes) (or shout 'Sir' to a gaggle of Officers, and watch them snap theirs necks) and compliment the SWO, W.Os and station commander, you'll get on fine.  You cant go around with hands in pockets etc.

The RAF training is strict (not as much as army though), just play the game.

Travel...  Afghan.   Occasionally cyprus and depending on budgets (or complete lack of at the moment) USA, belgium, scotland and a few others.  Our trials budgets is all but non-exsistent for next year, we usually do 3-4 months on the USA, but there's talk of maybe just sweden for 10days...cold!

Comparison for civvie street.  As an officer, totally different world.  You are lorded over, respected (well between your peers, lol).  As a techie, you get gassed once a year with CS.

Cost of living... as a singley on base, cheap cheap cheap.  say £104 for food, £170 for accom.  For an officer, it'll be more food and accom, and you pay into the officers mess fund too.  Officers get silver service aswell in the mess.


As a techie, (the system has changed since i went through) you'll start as a AMM (air maintenance mechanic - the old Flem system), 6months training at Cosford, go on a sqn for 2 years lineying the jets, be on low ish pay (say 900-1000 a month after food, accom, tax etc - so that money in your pocket to spend), then if your good enough get sent on a Fitters course back at cosford for 12-18months and come out as a now SAC-tech (and a BTEC qual) go to pay level 6 (if you use your AIP) and start really learning your trade, after 3 annual assesments your eligible for promotion (i say eligible, not you defo will - which some AMMs like they do).  Im on about £32k a year now, including my home to duty allowance, fully Q'd on the GR4 and have been all over the world - mainly drunk.  Work hard, play hard.  We always say the singley's are rich singley's, after food and accom, they are left with 1400-1500 a month (SAC (T) pay level 9), with no outgoings really, your minted!  Once you buy a house, you become poor like the rest of us, lol, but they pay your petrol.  Tis a good life though.

Highly recommend you come visit a base (can be arranged through the AFCO) and see what officers do, how they live and chat to them, also go to a sqn and see what we do. Always good to see Cranwell aswell so you know the training enviroment for officers and why they have the history they do, its very grand.  If your in the Lincs area, come over to Coningsby, I'll show you round.

www.e-goat.co.uk is a good forces forum to go on to get an insight to the banter, and general goings on of raf life, more nco ranks than officers though on there.  Also Pprune. The raf careers website has some fairly good videos on there, about training, life in general, challenges etc.  Ive got some ex rankers mates going through officer training right now.

[Yoof]

Paul- are you a Chief tech? Got a mate who's looking at going in, and all the technicians/engineers pay rates seem really wank!?!

He's a skilled technician- but seems to think he can earn more than his current rate in the forces, I'm not so sure (but I don't know what level you can come in at?)

Pay Rates are here:

http://armedforces.co.uk/rafpayscales.htm

Yoof

[hardchargin40]

My basic rate is £28, 382, high band level 9 SAC Tech.  I get the top up to slightly under 32K from my petrol allowance.  Its good pay for the level of responsibility you have.  About equivalant in civvie street i reckon.  BAE are offering 27, 500 to work on typhoon as a civvie mechanic, but you wont get the allowances, free dental, medical precriptions, private med ops if required urgently.

Corporal pay is another grand on top of that, you jump up a level on promotion, i.e. level 9 SAC is level 2 Corporal, so you go to level 3 Cpl pay if that makes sense, plus an increment in pay award (if you've a better qual) means you can jump up another level to level 4, top level of cpl is level 7 before sgt promotion beckons.

Promotion is done on annual written assessments (SJAR's) done by your sgt, so if he's a tool with his english, then you'll suffer on the promotion board.  I have for the last 2years.

There is potential to earn a fair amount, especially as a singley on base you've less outgoing than home owners etc  but it comes with time.  You'll start off with low pay... but as a 20yr old when i joined up, it was a decent amount. After say 5years, you'll jump upto a decent wage  Now im 30yr old, its never enough.  I know of alot of people who took a pay cut from civvie jobs to join up.

We winge about pay alot, because the admin trade, chefs and squippers have all blagged themselves onto the higher pay band, so now there is no difference from cpl rank onwards between an admin person and a more trained, more qualified, more worked aircraft techie.  We all abit bitter about it, since the high pay band was for technical pay only, not anymore.  Its our trade sponsers fault, they've got good ones, we've got crap ones and they managed to get the argument across before the goverment ran out of money, so they got it, we were too late.

I totally agree the pay rates are rubbish, good for SAC's, but once you go cpl and higher it teeters off, and the work load/responsibility is alot more.  My flight sgt for example was saying the other day, he is on £42k a year now but in civvie street equivalent he should be on £70k a year.  

Compared to civvie street, there are many of us that essentially are equivalent licensed engineers as civvie street, same training, signature responsibility etc etc but the RAF will not give us the licence qualification.  What they do give us though is 4years toward the 5 years mandatory experience needed for civvie licence, but you have to do the licence yourself.  In civvie street though its worth it, as a stamped up licensed engineer 'should' be on about 40k plus with experience.


your mate will start if joining in the ranks, basic rate through training 13.3k.  Then onto level 1 16.6k after 6months training, with LAC rank, 6months after onto level 2 when you get your SAC rank (1year service).  Then he'll possibly jump to to level 3 if he goes to cosford for further training.  after cosford for a year or more, level 5 to 23K, then AIP immediately with his BTEC qual to level 6, £24k, a few months after possibly due a level jump up anyway to level 7 £25.8k.  All that in say 4-5years.  Then every year jump up a level each time level 8, level 9... then await promotion, to keep going up the levels.  Each level roughly a grand.  Normal pension after 22yrs service is 1/3 of your annual salary, so say your a sgt, that 11k a year pension on top of state pension, plus 80K lump sum payment.

officer wise, totally different...  officer training (36wks) 15k, then to 16.6K after initial training and pilot officer rank.  After trade training, flying officer rank and start on 29K, each year up a level.  after say 3years, you'll get Flt Lt pay £37.1K starting, reaching top level of £44.2k.  After that promotion to sqn ldr is dependant on assessment (£46-56k a year), then the pay scale go through the roof.  If you fly, you'll get flying pay.  under 4years exp - £4.5k on top, then £8k, then £14.5k for more experience.  Airman Aircrew get flying pay too.   Officer pension (eligible after 18yr service) is half of your annual salary, so say sqn ldr, 27k pension a year on top of state and others, plus 100K if not more lump sum payment.

Generally Airman Aircrew (NCO aircrew), with a few years experience are on say £50k a year, but thats including normal sgts pay level, flying pay, then allowances for being overseas for says 4-6months of the year.

As you can see, pay scales between different ranks are totally different.  £1300 generally for say cpl - sgt, and alot more responsibility.  but £5k+ for officer between ranks and no real change.

ive considered going for officer this last year or so

[Yoof]

Cheers for the info- will pass it on.

The recruitment staff made it out to be 'only' a few years work to almost triple your pay. Which from what you've said is far from the truth!!!

One good thing about the forces is the clear distinctions in pay and levels, something we always suffer from at work is the nature of getting a payrise, there's no boxes to tick as such...

Cheers for the info 

[hayesey]

  PEDO 

[dub-disaster]

Thanks for in info has been very helpfull am going for an interview Monday I will have to take quite a big pay cut from my current job to join up but the cost of living decreases so in terms of money in my pocket I won't be much worse off.
I'll se what the recruiters say but I wanna join as aircrew as an officer realy of I can.I wouldndefinantly be intrested in actualy going to a base n see what goes on just to give me a better picture if what it's like.One more thing is who do I have to see to get a cranwell tour and be shown what an officer lives like??they got a he'll of alot of acronyms for things in the forces and I dint know what many of them mean could you fill me in on some of the ones you mentioned In your earlier post .Thanks for the info though your info been very insightful!

[Jezza-7]

iv just signed up for the navy, waiting to find out when my training starts!

im going to be a weapons technician on a sub!

how do you find being an aet? im assuming that means u work on plans?

I work on helicopters, lynx mk3 and mk8.

Really enjoy it. People say the pay isnt good but there are soo many benefits and people just dont think of them at the time of when they say the pay is crap. But honestly i take home £1200 a month (sometimes more or less) but i have only been in 3 and a half years, due to go up a pay level on x mas day. After pay, £200 is put away for savings, around £200 for bills and car insurance that leaves me with about £800. Dont know where it goes after that. Oh yeah on the car lol.

Plus i have just trained as a winchman for search and rescue which gains me an extra £145 a month.

I pay £60 a month for my accomodation which is taken out befor im paid, food i pay for when i want it so really its good.

As already mentioned medical, dentist, and gym is all free. Cant complain.

Also working on the aircraft that i work on, we go around the world on the back of a ship. Sometimes good places like far east and carribean sometimes crap places like gulf and falklands but its what you make of it. If you can tell me another job that pays you to go around the world and get lots of job perks then let me know, lol.

Plus when your away you will get sea pay which is something like £7 a day i think. More days at sea, the more pay you get, more months away the more you come back with, unless you go on the piss everytime you stop off somewhere.

Dont know if it was mentioned but the forces offer the best job security as you cant loose your job. You can get discharged if your a twat, like taking drugs or something as i have known a few people to leave due to that reason.

Personally i would say join the RAF as they are better trained in some area's, like SAC's. I was gonna join as an SAC but the waiting list was 1 year and 4 months. Plus once your in you can always transfer over. Wouldn't know much about Army but its obvious where you will go and there doing an awesome job, its a shame there have been soo many losses, especially this year......

But the RN's promotion is better then the RAF. We can get promoted to leading hand withing 3 years if your a fast track, usually 4-5 years for most other people, Petty officer maybe 4 years after that, but that is in the AET world though, not sure for other trades.

I do beleive but could be wrong, if you dont get promoted within 9 years the RAF can ask or will make you leave? Not sure how true that is.
We had someone who was RAF and was in for 9 years as a writer or something and didnt make promotion so they said you can leave of transfer, so he joined RN as AET and been here for 2 years now he's away on Leading Hands course. He is a dick though.

RN basic training is a piece of piss. Not very strict at all. Only 9 weeks i beleive as it was 8 weeks when i joined.
Do what your told, be on time (like always 5 mins before), and you will be fine.   

Paul, do you know SAC Jones, Chris? From wales. Just come from RNAS Yeovilton?

Oh and SAC Chandler? Big nose, really annoying!



 

[Jezza-7]

Oh yeah plus your pension's!!!! Good pension going on too.

Say for example your a chief on £48,000 a year and you have just served your full 22 years.

Your lump sum when you leave is something like £43,000 with a pension of £11,000 a year.

Not bad really.

[hardchargin40]

In the RAF (airman-wise), your signed onto a 9year contract to start with.  You can sign on after your 7 1/2 point to 12yrs.  Offer of promotion to CPL allows you to sign for 22yrs, though they are bringing that in now for SACs too. Im currently signed to a 15yr engagement.  

Oh forgot to mention the new commitment bonus, new entrants now can get £15, 000 bonus.  Taken at your 10yr point in full.  Or split at 4 1/2 and 7 1/2 yr points.  They tax you on it of course.   I was on the old system, £5, 000 bonus at 4 1/2, and £2500 at my 7 1/2yr point.  Alot of us were pissed off with that, but i guess there has to be a cut off somewhere.  The RAF is a young mans airforce, it seems to be rewarding the young, and happy to get rid of the older experience.  AMM's for example have lost/aren't being taught all the good old fault diagnosis techniques they we currently still employ, since the new breed of aircraft, Typhoon tell you whats wrong with it.

Officers sign onto 12yr engagement.  Officer wise, i guess its true what they say at the AFCO about tripling your pay in a few years.  OK, maybe double... 16k starting to 29k to 37k in say 3years service, if you've a degree.  (Flying Officer to flt Lt in 18months with degree, 3years without.

Airman wise - Benefits if you go away on ops or dets, you get I.E. (£5 a day in UK, £10 a day overseas), LOA (£dependant on rank - we had $17 a day in usa this year) and LSSA (from £7 a day below 400days away, £10 a day between 401-700ish, then £more above that, more days away.  Ive got 473days away so far.  So you could get an extra £30 a day easy when you go away.  Plus your daily subsistance rates (food money).


If you can go for Aircrew, D-D, Go For It!  We take the piss, and say monkeys could fly them, but it really is a real skill.  Stuff like dealing with multiple taskings, while low level at 500mph, getting new tasks and dealing with emergencies through lengthy exercised drills so its second nature, then spotting and avoid a bird strike.  Try seeing a bird coming at you, when your going 600mph!  Its a small dot!  The Typhoon is an awesome aircraft (we rip it, cause of its design flaws/production issues-but its the best there is), its miles ahead of the F22 Raptor (Yanks disagree, but then they would - head to head 2years ago in China Lake, Typhoon made mince meat of it).  Tornado, may be older now but its still the RAFs most stable weapon platform  going, Harrier going Out of service possibly 2018 if not earlier still cuts the mustard.  Even Helicoptor wise, we've some great stuff!

Jezza-7, Doubt I'll know those SAC's mate.  We dont have much goings on with the Typhoon sqns (we are a lodger unit at conz, keep ourselves to ourselves and all that), and we only have experienced personnel on 41sqn due to the multiple platforms we work on, though times are changing... AMMs due next year .