Current Role
The squadron currently operates five Grob Tutor trainer aircraft under a private finance initiative with Babcock International's aerospace division. This, along with five Qualified Flying Instructors (QFIs), allow up to ten students to be accommodated with the squadron at any time.
Serving officers are assessed for their suitability to continue flight training during a three-week stay with the squadron. During those weeks, he or she will fly eleven hours with an instructor before flying a pre-FHT with a different instructor and then a Final Handling Test with the commanding officer.
The squadron also undertakes many other roles, one of which is the Special Flying Award. This scheme is open to any member of the public who has expressed an interest in joining the Fleet Air Arm as aircrew and have been put forward by their Careers Office. The course lasts for two weeks with the aim of 10 hours in the cockpit. There are also a number of Special Flying Awards organised for members of the URNU.
The squadron currently has just two full-time Naval personnel; the commanding officer and the training officer. Babcock employs five civilian flying instructors under their contract to teach the students. The squadron is also supported by a number of ex-service QFIs from the RNR to instruct and two holdover student pilots who are between flying training courses bound for general duties. Maintenance of the Grob fleet is provided by a Babcock senior licensed engineer with three engineering support staff. An aircraft handler provides aircraft handling, refuelling and assistance to aircrew. The squadron moved from Plymouth Airport to RNAS Yeovilton in early 2007, following the departure of the last Sea Harrier squadron from RNAS Yeovilton in 2006.
Read more about this topic: 727 Naval Air Squadron
Famous quotes containing the words current and/or role:
“Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“I wish glib and indiscriminate critics of industrialists had some conception of the problems that have to be met by factory management.... General condemnation of employers is a favorite indoor sport of the uninformed intelligentsia who assume the role of lance- bearers for labor.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)