Chiltern Hills

Recently there have been two Chiltern Hills events that we have attended. One from 12th - 14th March and the other 2nd - 4th April. Flt Sgt Oldrey and Sgt Jones went on the 1st Chiltern Hills and both completed it without any major injuries. On that event there were two drop outs. Cpl Ferrie went to the second event and also completed it without any major injuries. This now means that we have all qualified for the Belgium Ijzer. If we want to take part in Nijmegan or the Death March we need to complete RAF Cosford, which is 50miles in two days.

Chiltern Hills is a two day march where you cover 40miles in total. You arrive the night before and sleep at 1187 sqn so that you can be up early ready to march at 0800. You are fed a huge cooked breakfast which you have to eat if you are to make it through the whole day, it doesn't taste too bad either. That day you will march approximately 20miles, maybe more. Along the way you will recieve snacks and a packed lunch, which again was huge. After that you are taken to a health club where you shower and recieve a full meal. When you return everybody is made to clean their boots and have all uniform checked for the next day. If you are sensible you will go to bed early that night. Next day is exactly the same as the first day, only a different route and once you've finished you can go home and sleep. This event was great fun and i would gladly do it again.

Navigation Course

On the 27th March Sgt Percy, Sgt Jones, Cpl Hollins, Cpl Webb, Cdt Knapman, Cdt HoweD and Cdt HoweM arrived at the squadron at 9am to receive navigation training. We started the day with a brief about the quick test we were about to have. The test involved sitting in a semi-circle and having cards labelling from A to F with questions on them, once we had finished the question we passed on the cards to the next person.

After finishing the test we had to revise different navigation skills such as; Grid References, Scales, Contours and Symbols. We then learnt
What was needed in a backpack when going on a navigational exercise such as; a torch, emergency food, extra clothing, water and high visibility vests.

We then learnt outside and we had a quick briefing about what we were doing, we were then shown a point on a map and had to navigate our way to that point using a compass, we found this relatively easy to do, once at our appointed place we had to use the features around us to orientate and set the map relative to our position.

The cadets found this navigation exercise relatively easy but still challenging and would happily do it again.

Cadet Knapman

First Aid Training

First Aid Training

This was a very enjoyable course.We were taught life saving skills which we can use throughout our life and will hopefully be able to use these to save somebody's life if that situation ever arises.
We were shown how to deal with and treat the following:

1) How to deal with different situations appropiately
2) The Recovery Position
3) How to carry out CPR on dummies and how to put this into practise in real life situations
4) How to treat somebody who is choking: backslaps and abdominal thrusts
5) Heart Attacks- signs and symptoms and how to initially treat
6) Serious Bleeds - how to bandage arms,legs and head.We practised on each other.

Cadet Harrison