RAF Section Summer Camp

After a very long drive to RAF Spadeadam in Cumbria with RAF cadets from other schools, we ate our first dinner in the mess hall and got ourselves settled into our flights and rooms with some icebreakers and personal admin. On the next day, we went to enjoy some ancient and modern military history, firstly to Housesteads Roman Fort along Hadrian’s Wall, in a very picturesque area, and then to Solway Aviation Museum, where we spent some time around some relics of Cold War British aviation, the highlights being the guided tour of the Vulcan bomber, and cramming ourselves into the Canberra.

The next day we went for our station visits around the base, visiting the ops site, where aircraft are controlled that visit the electronic warfare range, and the abandoned training airfield, a very eerie place filled with rows of jet fighters on mock runways. In the evening, we practised some skill at arms in preparation of the range later in the week. Next morning we had a visit from a GCHQ specialist to give us a course on cybersecurity, where we also had a chance to practise our skills in open-source intelligence gathering from the internet, and also cracking codes, something which would help us with another exercise on this camp.

After a very fun evening of bowling, we drove to the mock-up building on site, which is used for training the fire service on base for casualty retrieval. Two fellow cadets and I entered the pitch-black house and found all the casualties with only our sense of touch, and then produced an (adequate) map. Afterwards, we practised out navigational and codebreaking skills in Exercise BLUE STREAK, named after the Cold War rocket of the same name, which was tested at Spadeadam. We wandered around many of the sights at the base, including large concrete structures used to test the Blue Streak’s huge engine, and abandoned Soviet anti-air vehicles used for target practice. Next morning we begun an Adventurous Training day at Talking Tarn, where we built rafts, kayaked, and tried our hands at archery … with varying degrees of success. On the penultimate day, we visited RAF Boulmer for a fascinating insight into the UK’s airspace defence system, and honed our marksmanship on a DCCT range. Finally, on the last day, we said our goodbyes to a lot of our newfound friends and headed home, for a well-earned rest after a great week.

Cpl Craven

Lower Sixth