Page 151 - Demo

151%u0004%u0008%u0001%u0010%u0010%u0006A:%u0004%u0006ffi%u0015<%u0017%u0006ffi%u0017%u0017&*?%u0006%u0006We have heard something of aircrew training, but there was an international dimension to the training of groundcrew as well. During the war, for instance, Polish apprentices were trained at Halton. Post8war, just as the apprentice scheme was winding down in the early 1970s, Halton began training Saudis, Jordanians and others. How much did the RAF gain from that aspect of training? %u000e%u001799%u0013%-? I%u2019m not sure that the RAF per se gains a great deal from training the technicians of other nations %u2013 but a considerable advantage does accrue to UK Ltd. We sell arms to other nations and their personnel need to be trained to maintain them %u2013 and we charge them for that service. 3B%u0006%u0009(B%u0016%u00063%u0017%u001399%u0006%u0019%%u0015/-+%u0017? Apart from training people in the UK, it is also done overseas. In Oman, for instance, because they were operating mostly British aircraft in the early days, the manufacturers used to offer specific8to8type engineering courses, with the RAF covering more specialised trades %u2013 safety equipment, armourers, propulsion and, increasingly, avionics. As an element of loan service, the RAF helped to establish a Technical Training Institute in Oman. This had been conceived as a joint8service undertaking but it finished up being air8only, because the army couldn%u2019t grasp the similarity between the gun sights in a tank and in an aeroplane, even though both were computer8based and relied on GPS. But today, the RAF8instigated Institute provides instruction from raw recruits to junior command/SNCO level. %u0004%u001affi%u00063%u0017%u0013%,%u0017%u0006%u0019+(&