fact that it was an OCU that was tasked
with rapidly expanding pilot numbers
to feed a growing Typhoon Force.
“Post-Ellamy there was a sea change,”
continues Chisholm. “It was a rush deployment,
but the effect on the training system was
huge. It forced us to look at how we packaged
the training and the standard of graduate
that stepped out of the door here.”
Back then, the OCU mission was essentially
to generate sufficient pilots to cover the
quick reaction alert (QRA) mission.
“I stepped out of the OCU with a limited
skillset by design,” Chisholm continues. “I was
thrown into an alien world because the pace
on the front line didn’t stop. Exercise Red
Flag in 2013 was a huge eye-opener for most
of us. I had done Red Flag in the Harrier, but
I wasn’t prepared for the weight of violence
that was unleashed on us in those initial
waves. It was incredible training. In 2012 I
was a ‘chipolata’; in 2013, just 12 short months
later, I was standing in front of 350 American
and British fourth- and fifth-generation
fighter pilots as their escort commander.”
The RAF Typhoon Force has come a very long
way since then. On reflection, No 29 Squadron
has grown its syllabus to embrace a true multi-
role Typhoon. The course now includes anti-
SAM (surface-to-air missile) tactics, electronic
attack, air-to-surface, advanced air-to-air – it
goes right across the board. The objective
was to ‘download’ that training from the front
line, which was buckling under the pressure
of having to provide extensive combat-ready
workups for the relatively limited skill sets
of the new pilots coming out of the OCU.
The RAF decided to bring that work back to
the OCU, give it to the experienced instructors,
in the proper environment, rather than to burden
the front line. Amid a developing threat and
wider range of capabilities in the Typhoon, the
OCU’s remit dramatically evolved. Back then
it was taking as long as 18 months to get a
new pilot combat ready on a frontline squadron- today it takes just three to four months.
“Frontline squadron commanders love it,” says
Chisholm. “When they get a brand-new pilot
from the OCU now, they have to give them a ‘top
up’ on a few skill sets and they can be straight
out on Operation Shader or on a Red Flag.”
A new generation
The current course means that all students
leave the OCU as an ‘effective wingman’.
Their workup to being combat ready on
the front line is massively reduced.
Craig explains: “You do everything as a
wingman here and by the end of the course
I’ll be ready to fly as a ‘dash two’ to a flight
lead, going and doing the job I’ve been
taught to do. I should easily be a pairs
leader by the end of my first frontline tour.
“We all learn to do everything. There’s
an attack phase where we simulate
weapons employment, we can carry the
LDP [laser designator pod] in the simulator,
we have a live strafe phase on the range,we use the radar to work at distance
and then take it right to the merge.”
The six-month course clearly involves a
demanding workload and long days. “At
Valley we could read up on a lot of the theory
on what we were doing in our room. Here
you can take some stuff home, but a lot
has to remain here [for security reasons]. It
means we have a much longer working day.”
As well as the dramatic change in the range
of missions taught here, there is an additional
focus on being a ‘single-seat OCU’. This is
because the RAF’s fast jet fleets will soon be
solely single-seat Typhoons and F-35s. By
October, the RAF will have retired all of its
early Tranche 1 two-seat Typhoon T3s (T-birds
or ‘tubs’) by design. Five years ago, almost
all the jets on the line at No 29 Squadron
were two-seaters, but by the end of this
year the OCU will have just four ‘tubs’.
The Tranche 1 single-seaters will
remain, but the two-seat aircraft are
the oldest and most difficult to support
and will be reduced to spares.
Sqn Ldr Stu is the Training Officer at
the squadron. “Our ab initio students
have a bare minimum of safety-critical
sorties that we’ve picked out to be flown
in a T-bird. That is likely to be some of
the early convex [conversion exercise]
flights and things such as close formation
at night. The big mindset change came
about a year ago when we started getting
ready for the T-bird fleet to be massivelyLeft: An instructor performs a walk round, with
the famous Tattershall Castle in the background.
Right: Early morning on the No 29 Squadron
fl ight line as the day’s fl ying gets under way.
The OCU is already training Saudi and Omani
students and is preparing to accept Qatari pilots
and engineers next year.80 // MAY 2018 #362 http://www.airforcesmonthly.com