Royal Air Force (RAF) recruits spend months – sometimes years – essentially flying desks instead of fighter jets as they wait for training positions to open up. The delays could hamper the future availability of crews to operate front-line Typhoon and F35 squadrons at a time of growing threats from Russia and China and with war raging in Europe, defense sources said. Pilots destined for training in other aircraft, such as military transport planes and helicopters, also suffer. The Royal Navy and army airmen are also affected. The backlog is so severe that the RAF is considering asking up to 30 of its recruits to resign voluntarily, an internal memo said. He warned of “reputational risk” if air chiefs took such a step. There is no suggestion of forced redundancies. An internal memo from May and slides from a meeting of top RAF officers in July, seen by Sky News, reveal: • A “pop-up” problem with the Rolls-Royce engine in the Hawk aircraft, used by fast jet recruits for training. It will “reduce pipeline capacity over the next three years.” This will increase waiting times for some trainees to join the course to around 12 months.• Concern about a “damaging drain” of qualified pilots leaving the RAF for better-paid jobs in industry, rather than remaining in frontline or instructor roles . One slide said: “The draw is so big from such a small pool that we are approaching a critical mass point.” However, an RAF source said there was no “mass exodus”.• The UK’s commitment to train pilots from places such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia as part of a deal to sell the country’s Typhoon jets is absorbing already limited training space . This has made several RAF pilots wait longer to join the Operational Conversion Unit, which is the final stage of their training, a defense source said.• Despite having 43 places, only 11 trainee pilots from the UK have scheduled to go through the fast jet training conversion stage to learn how to fly an F35 or a Typhoon this year. “The Biggest Staff in the RAF” A serving officer with knowledge of the training pipeline said: “Right now, it’s the biggest body in the RAF.” Asking to remain anonymous, they told Sky News: “To have a selection process that is second only to the selection of astronauts, so that you take the cream of the crop and then have them complete their flight training over six to eight – The process of year, when it should only last two to three years, is absolutely insane, especially when it comes to taxpayers’ money.” A former senior air force officer, also speaking on condition of anonymity, agreed. He called the situation a “scandal … a crisis,” saying it’s a chronic problem for nearly 30 years that air force chiefs have consistently tried and failed to resolve. But a second RAF source defended the situation and flatly denied there was a crisis. He said this year was always going to be a “challenge” as the Air Force prepared to retire a number of aircraft and bring in new platforms as part of modernization plans. Image: A Royal Air Force C17 Globemaster III aircraft carrying a load of Britain’s support package for Ukraine The trainers were forced to take to the skies Russia’s war in Ukraine has added additional pressure, with the RAF being called upon to provide more fast aircraft and crews to patrol the skies of NATO allies in the alliance’s east. This meant that on one occasion, trainers at the Operational Conversion Unit at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire had to take time out to man the Quick Reaction Alert jets trying to protect UK airspace, affecting some training courses that had to be rescheduled . The source said a senior group of RAF officers meets three or four times a year to consider all training issues. This was so “in the dynamic market and the dynamic world of training – and all these multi-aircraft challenges that happen or turn off different things with them – that we do it effectively on a regular basis, not waiting for the problem to arrive.” , the source said. “We’re trying to rise to the top and manage people’s lives and help them in their careers.” An RAF spokesman said: “While we recognize there are challenges with the training pipeline, we are working across Defence, with industry and our international partners to improve the training experience and outcomes for our personnel, including recruiting more trainers and active schedule management for training. “We continue to have sufficient aircrew to meet our operational commitments.” Image: Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4 at RAF Akrotiri Long waiting lists for trainees The leaked documents gave a sense of the scale of the challenge. About 347 trainees – more than half of the 596 personnel in the total flight training system, including Army and Navy aviators – are waiting for a place at a training course or are in a “refresher” course. Students need to refresh their skills when the delay in moving to the next phase of their education is so bad that they are no longer up to date on what they already know. Waiting times for flight lessons vary by aircraft type. The memo said about 80 people would have to wait three and a half years to obtain multi-engine training, which is required to operate transport aircraft such as the A400m and C-17 and spy planes such as the Rivet Joint and Poseidon. underwater hunter. Separately, there is a wait of between two to three years to learn how to fly a Chinook helicopter. The delays have left dozens of personnel – dubbed ‘holdovers’ because they are waiting for a training course – scattered around RAF bases, other military headquarters and even at Ministry of Defense Headquarters in London. The RAF source said a lot of effort was being made to ensure those waiting did not waste their time working on a photocopier. Image: Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4 at RAF Akrotiri The problems “come from the end of the Cold War” The source offered examples of some officers being sent to Russian or Arabic language courses and others learning how to be air traffic controllers. This “gives everyone professional qualifications that are broader than what they expected.” But the delays also mean the average age of a newly qualified pilot in the RAF has risen to 29 from their early to mid-20s, changing the demographics of the service. This could have “significant implications for future professional development, outreach and retention,” one of the papers warned. Defense sources said today’s training problems can be traced back to the end of the Cold War, when successive governments tried to cut defense spending, cashing in on the so-called “peace dividend” and the false hope that Russia would no longer pose a threat. The size of the RAF, the Army and the Royal Navy was repeatedly reduced, including the number of pilots and fighter aircraft, with front-line squadrons reduced to seven from around 30. At the same time, plans were drawn up to privatize much of the military’s flight training. Image: Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4 at RAF Akrotiri Around 2008, a consortium called Ascent, made up of US defense giant Lockheed Martin and its British counterpart Babcock, secured an initial 25-year contract to deliver what is known as the Military Flying Training System (MFTS). A set number of recruits are required to be trained in various specialties, including fast jets, multi-engines – such as spy planes and transport aircraft – and helicopters. But defense sources said the RAF – under pressure from the Treasury – kept changing its mind on the size of the training pipeline following a 2010 defense review that imposed further, painful cuts to the armed forces and a 2015 review that adjusted levels slightly. Sky News understands that some officers at the time preferred to pay a little more to keep some spare training capacity to give the RAF the ability to raise new pilots if a future government felt the air force had been cut too deeply. It would also build resilience to absorb the impact of any disruptions with the training courses. When not required, the additional training positions could be filled by foreign crew as part of multi-billion pound deals to sell British-made Typhoon aircraft to international partners – a win-win. But defense sources said others within the RAF disagreed, instead prioritizing the need for Treasury-led spending cuts and opting for a contract to train the minimum viable number of pilots. They won the argument, but they seem to have created a system that struggles to deliver the pilots they need in peacetime, let alone if the UK went to war again. “The system has been upgraded to only work if everything goes perfectly,” said the senior ex-RAF officer. “It’s a system that only works if you keep rolling sixes.”