Last weekend 8F squadron held their basic adventure training weekend at Rough Close. The Staff and training team were hosts to cadets from 7 different squadrons from throughout the wing.

The weekend is aimed at cadets with little or no adventure training experience and aims to provide them with an all round basic knowledge that they can take back to their squadrons and put into practice. The training team from 8F squadron consists primarily of dedicated NCOs who have planned and prepared their own lessons and delivered them very professionally throughout the weekend.

The weekend begins on Friday evening when the cadets are introduced to their 7-man shelter and the rest of their flight. Once the basic admin is out of the way, each flight, led by a member of the training team undertakes a familiarisation exercise of Rough Close. Upon their return, the first lesson of the weekend is How to Stay Warm in a Sleeping Bag. It may sound obvious but some top tips are given to the cadets. This is then followed by a personal hygiene brief.

After reveille, breakfast and inspection on Saturday morning, the cadets in their flights, rotate around the following lessons;

Basic Navigation – This looks at difference scales on maps, using a compass, pacing and judging distances and walking on a bearing. This is then followed by a couple of exercises within the group, and compares navigating across an open area and a wooded area.

Cooking – This looks at the different types of cookers, how they work and their effectiveness. The lessons also looked at different types of food, e.g. tins, boil in the bag, dried food etc and ways of cooking & nutrition. The instructors also demonstrate a couple of ways of lighting small fire to cook.

Shelters – This lesson looks at types of shelters, the disadvantages and positives of each and when each one may be used. This includes a shelter made from a parachute, poncho and natural surroundings. The flight also used an emergency survival shelter as would be issued to them for D of E. This lessons ends with the flight building their own shelter for the training team members.

Patrolling – This lesson as the title suggests, teaches the cadets the methods and techniques of patrolling and hand signals which they then put into practise with a couple of small exercises.

Camouflage & Concealment – The cadets are taught the 5 rules of camouflage and concealment from their clothing, to odourless deodorant and talc to methods of applying cam cream and the use of scarves and helmets etc. The flight is split into pairs and they work on the camouflage of each other and then hide from the training team in the immediate area.

All of the skills from these lessons are bought together in a night exercise, which each flight has to meet their own objective in order to join together to successfully complete the exercise as a whole. The cadets are then rewarded with hot soup, bread rolls and a lovely fire as prepared by the staff.

On the Sunday, a few yarns and tired faces are faced with an inter flight competition. They have 45 minutes to build a shelter and make a cup of tea, for which they are given a score out of ten. They then have to ‘cam up’, (for which they also given an overall flight score), and patrol back to base camp, avoiding the training team, to form an all round defence.

This was a very successful weekend which all of the cadet appeared to enjoy and learn a great deal from. The weather was very kind to us and I am very proud of the 8F training team who worked extremely hard both before and during the weekend to deliver a very professional run weekend and to ensure it’s success.