Day One

So after what seemed like forever, school was over! I packed up and went to the hut. After some time helping with some last minute logistics, I was on the minibus and on my way to Bovington. All the unloading of the various vehicles took a while but soon enough we were ready to begin with our first night op. There was only twelve assistants, six in each fire team, we did some patrolling and practised our manoeuvres until about 23:00 when we headed back to our Bivvi Area. The sleep wasn’t the best for me because I sleep walk but I survived the night. One down, two to go.

Day Two

I woke up at about 07:00 and was the last person awake, no surprise there! Breakfast was, as usual when at Bovington, of the canned variety. The morning started with some more patrolling although it was rather exciting having to chase the students, adding to the realism of hostile forces for the students on the course.  The day was a wash of different exercises across the Bovington Training Area. In the night ex the students had to retrieve the glow sticks from three different locations, my teams position was the last one left and took the students over an hour to retrieve, so long I used the opportunity to have a quick sleep but fortunately I wasn’t on Stag duty.  We returned back to the bivvi area and made our bashers for the evening.

Day 3

The third and final day, where does time go when you’re having a good time!? We were tasked to act as a hostile force in a part of the training area known as the dust bowl. The student’s mission was to retrieve a captured pilot. It took the students a while to arrive on location and the assistants all noted that the student camouflage wasn’t up to much. In the end the Section Commander decided it would be easy to call in an “Apache” for this exercise this was Warrant Officer and Sergeant Symonds driving a 4×4 playing Ride of the Valkyrie through the car speakers ! The best part of this was having to dive on the floor dramatically. The exercise lasted around three hours, but we all ended up with a bit of a tan due to the desert like conditions. We arrived back at the Bivvi area, packed up all our kit onto the vehicles and this was followed by a couple of ‘Fod Plods’ or litter sweeps as they are more commonly known. And so with around ten hours of sleep over the whole weekend we set off back to Ferndown.

After a sleep in the vehicles we returned back to the hut. The evening was very relaxed with a BBQ and sports.  This was a chance to catch up with our mates, who were students on the course from 2358 but also meet new cadets representing 130 (Bournemouth) and 149 (Poole) squadrons.

Watch this space for some photo’s to follow…

By Cadet Whitcher

2358 Air Training Corp Press Team