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Details matter you know

Yes, seems sensible enough that parachute allowances should only be paid to those likely to parachute.

I think I\’m right in saying that flying allowances are only paid to those who are current to fly?

4 thoughts on “Details matter you know”

  1. In my day (cue Jimi Hendrix) I received both kinds of pay on qualification and for as long as I was liable to be ordered to jump or fly, which in both cases was until the end of my service. Flying pay was paid whether or not one was current and even if one was posted to a non-flying job.

    And quite right too.

    The correct answer to this conundrum is to admit that ordinary parachuting is now obsolete, buy more helicopters and disband the Parachute Regiment. Special Forces may be different.

  2. Radius of action of helicopter: 150 miles
    Radius of action of fixed wing aircraft: unlimited with in flight refueling
    Cost of helicopter compared to fixed wing aircraft for same tonnage transported: 3x
    Fuel requirement for rotary vs fixed wing aircraft for same load over same distance: 3x

    Despite all the hullabaloo, cost of maintaining a parachute force a lot lower than buying loads of helicopters. Declaring parachuting obselete is itself a little obselete: armies keep on utilising the technique worldwide. This looks like yet another pathetic cost saving from the SDSR that will rapidly prove to be idiotic. So far, it turns out we needed aircraft carriers after all so we can base our helicopters offshore. Pray that the Libyans don’t decide to use aircraft to attack them, since we don’t have carrier based air defence aircraft anymore and Gioia de Colle is a 1400 km round trip away from Misrata and maintaining a minimal CAP will take another squadron of Typhoons we don’t have, refuelled by more tankers that we also don’t have. Doubtless once we decide we cannot hold Misrata, we will decide we have to land troops there at short notice. Most of the Royal Marines are in Afghanistan, and would take weeks to get there anyway in the best of circumstances. However, the airfield was bombed, so we cannot airland engineers to fix it, so we need to…parachute! Next, it will be discovered that defense against armoured forces cannot wholly rely on light infantry and airstrikes for extended periods, so we need…tanks!

    All this has occurred within *7 months* of a defence review where *the same government* effectively declared we didn’t need to do any of these things!

    As a lesson as why you should ignore politicians who mouth inanities about this or that capability being “obselete”, “only required for the Cold War” etc, it could hardly be bettered…..

  3. Surreptitious Evil

    And parachute pay is only paid to those who are current to parachute (which, I’ll admit, takes less effort than being current to fly.) And Special Service Pay, of all sorts, now tails off quite aggressively when you are not in a qualifying billet. Or when you reach a sufficiently senior rank that there are no qualifying billets.

    So the most senior people on full Para Pay are likely to be (I haven’t checked the rules), Brig 16AA and Brig 3 Cdo. DSF might qualify too. Just.

    The concept that Cmdr Field Army, who is a nice guy for all he’s a donkey walloper, is in receipt of para pay is just barking.

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