For my next assignment, I had the honor to join the Air Cadets for an entire day. But what are the Air Cadets exactly? The “Royal Belgian Air Cadets”, as they are called officially, is a non-profit organization that’s backed by the Belgian Airforce. Their goal is to inspire and engage young people that pursue a career in aviation, preferably in the Belgian Air Force but not exclusively.

The cadets themselves are a group dedicated and disciplined boys and girls between the ages of 15 and 16 coming from both the French and Flemish regions. To become one, you need to pass a theoretical and physical examination which is held once a year.

When you’re selected as a Cadet, you’ll be trained into the basics of aviation (meteorology, airplane basics, gliding techniques, … ) by a team of dedicated and enthusiastic instructors. Besides the theoretic aspect, there’s also a lot of focus on discipline and teamwork. However, I couldn’t help but notice that most of the Cadets are boys? So SHOUT-OUT TO ALL THE GIRLS: the Air Cadets could definitely use some girl power!

The base camp of the Air Cadets is at an airfield located at Weelde, a small village in Antwerp near Ravels. At the same airfield there is also a fantastic civilian gliding club called KAC. I highly recommend them because I did my very first solo gliding flight there!😊

So how does a day in the life of a cadet look like? Their day starts off with a briefing in which they get feedback of the previous training to improve their skills. Afterwards they get informed about the meteo so they can prepare themselves for the flights of the day. The Air Cadets train mainly with gliders, so they need to be taken out of the hangars in the beginning of the day. This is done by a fixed assigned team because one error can cause mayor damage. Once the gliders are stalled outside a (very important) daily check is performed. If the aircraft gets declared as flight safe the gliding can begin! Unfortunately we had some bad luck with the weather in the morning. There was too much fog to fly so we needed to wait. In the afternoon the weather changed completely so the flying could begin! The gliders were placed on the airfield and pulled into the air with the help of a winch. I was lucky and got the chance to visit the winch. It was very interesting to see because it contains a lot of power!

To end the day properly a friend of mine came by to take me on a flight with another plane!

Pictures

If you’re interested in becoming one of the Royal Belgian Air Cadets I would highly recommend visiting their website of which I’ll put a link below. But make no mistake, do know that there are admission tests!

For more information about:

• RBAC: Royal Belgian Air Cadets

• KAC: Kempische Aeroclub - Zweefvliegen in Weelde (kac.be)

• Belgian Air Force: Luchtcomponent | Defensie (mil.be)