riat volunteering

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warthog555
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riat volunteering

Post by warthog555 »

hi all. i have sent a volunteer form to riat this morning. does anyone have any previous experiences of volunteering there while i wait for a response from them? :slight_smile:

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CJS
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by CJS »

There are several seasoned RIAT volunteers on UKAR so I'm sure you'll get a good reply at some point. I'd love to be able to do it one day too.
"There's only one way of life, and that's your own"

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Gonzo230
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by Gonzo230 »

This will be my fifth show as a volunteer, on the air traffic control team.

It’s the highlight of my year.

What did you want to know?

warthog555
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by warthog555 »

i want to know about what time you normally have to be at the staff reception on your first day. I'm not local to Fairford (shropshire) so it would take me about 2 hours for me to get there.

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boff180
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by boff180 »

And I'm on the Media Liaison Group team :-)

We're a friendly bunch - I'd suggest arriving the day before your first duty day to pick up your passes.etc, makes everything quite relaxed, you can go and find your accommodation and unload too.

If you can't get there until you're first day - I would suggest checking with your volunteer manager or permanent member of staff of when they require you on site and work to arrive 1.5hrs to 2hrs before that at DBH.

Ta

Andy

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Gonzo230
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by Gonzo230 »

Most of the ATC team try to arrive on the Tuesday morning to register at DBH before having lunch then meeting at the tower around 2pm for final briefing and setting up the tower, ready to go on Wed morning.

It can take over an hour, if not longer, to get processed at DBH, and you might have to park 15min walk away.

warthog555
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by warthog555 »

boff180 wrote:
Mon 20 Jun 2022, 11:52 am
And I'm on the Media Liaison Group team :-)

We're a friendly bunch - I'd suggest arriving the day before your first duty day to pick up your passes.etc, makes everything quite relaxed, you can go and find your accommodation and unload too.

If you can't get there until you're first day - I would suggest checking with your volunteer manager or permanent member of staff of when they require you on site and work to arrive 1.5hrs to 2hrs before that at DBH.

Ta

Andy
im planning to join the marshalling team. as well as this, this is my first air tattoo!

warthog555
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by warthog555 »

:cry: turns out they have run out of spaces for volunteers for this year

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CJS
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by CJS »

warthog555 wrote:
Mon 20 Jun 2022, 4:17 pm
:cry: turns out they have run out of spaces for volunteers for this year
Tbf it was very close to the event, I assumed you meant for 2023.

Boff/gonzo etc...when do the volunteering roles usually get sorted out by?
"There's only one way of life, and that's your own"

Big Eric
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by Big Eric »

warthog555 wrote:
Mon 20 Jun 2022, 4:17 pm
:cry: turns out they have run out of spaces for volunteers for this year
That's a shame, do you have any marshalling experience?

warthog555
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by warthog555 »

thats the problem. i dont have a day job at an airfield, im not in the military, and nor have i retired from the military! do i need any qualifications to marshall aircraft at riat?

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Gonzo230
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by Gonzo230 »

CJS wrote:
Mon 20 Jun 2022, 4:37 pm
warthog555 wrote:
Mon 20 Jun 2022, 4:17 pm
:cry: turns out they have run out of spaces for volunteers for this year
Tbf it was very close to the event, I assumed you meant for 2023.

Boff/gonzo etc...when do the volunteering roles usually get sorted out by?

Marshalling and air traffic are some of the skill-specific roles that would require current experience.

ATC volunteers are recruited in-house by the current ATC team; we invite prospective team members to visit to spend a day with us, usually on the Wednesday or Thursday. They get to see the setup, and we get to see what they’re like and if they’d fit in. If they want to come back, the next year they arrive as trainees, working under on the job instruction during Wed and Thurs by those of us qualified as instructors at our home units. The CAA inspector will arrive on the Friday to conduct their examination, practical and theoretical, and once complete they are on their own.

They have to be a current UK aerodrome control ATC licence holder.

The RIAT ATC operation is considered by the CAA to be a bona fide (albeit temporary) ATC unit, so it has to follow the same regulations as any other ATC unit in terms of training plan, rosters, manuals and procedures. It’s quite a bit of work to prep for it all every year.

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CJS
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by CJS »

Interesting, thanks for the info 👍🏼
"There's only one way of life, and that's your own"

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Gonzo230
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by Gonzo230 »

We put quite a lot out on the @riatairtraffic Twitter feed last week about the prep for the show.

FlyingFairy
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by FlyingFairy »

warthog555 wrote:
Mon 20 Jun 2022, 5:03 pm
thats the problem. i dont have a day job at an airfield, im not in the military, and nor have i retired from the military! do i need any qualifications to marshall aircraft at riat?
The RIAT engineering team adheres in principal to MAA regulations, hence all volunteers must have a proven background in either civilian or military aviation with experience in ground handling/marshalling of aircraft.

You may wish to consider volunteering for a different team? vacancies are normally listed on the RIAT website, although as others have already high lighted, this years lists are probably now closed.

HTH

FF

edhunter
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by edhunter »

Gonzo230 wrote:
Mon 20 Jun 2022, 6:34 pm
We put quite a lot out on the @riatairtraffic Twitter feed last week about the prep for the show.
Is there a Facebook page?

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boff180
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by boff180 »

CJS wrote:
Mon 20 Jun 2022, 4:37 pm
warthog555 wrote:
Mon 20 Jun 2022, 4:17 pm
:cry: turns out they have run out of spaces for volunteers for this year
Tbf it was very close to the event, I assumed you meant for 2023.

Boff/gonzo etc...when do the volunteering roles usually get sorted out by?
Volunteer vacancies are advertised on the website around January/February. I think this year 10 roles were advertised iirc.

Unless you have some form of qualification or specialist skill, you can be limited to applying for volunteer teams such as the Crew. As Gonzo says, to get on teams such as the engineering team or ATC you already need to be qualified in those roles.
The media team tends to be a mixture of pro and well known aviation photographers/writers, journalists, media managers and people used to dealing with the press/VIPs. There are less volunteers this year for obvious reasons so any positions that were advertised were team members that had decided to retire or not attend for some reason.

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Gonzo230
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by Gonzo230 »

edhunter wrote:
Mon 20 Jun 2022, 7:27 pm
Gonzo230 wrote:
Mon 20 Jun 2022, 6:34 pm
We put quite a lot out on the @riatairtraffic Twitter feed last week about the prep for the show.
Is there a Facebook page?

No, sorry.

It’s difficult enough to grab time to update the Twitter feed when the show is on!

I’ll copy and paste later this evening on a separate thread.,

warthog555
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by warthog555 »

i have thought about marshalling for next year, ive decided against it as i need qualifications so i have decided to be on the aircrew reception team instead! any inside info on that team?

Jimbo27
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by Jimbo27 »

This will be my 10th year, most on my team have done a lot longer. :-) It's a great experience, shows the airshow in a completely different perspective.

warthog555
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by warthog555 »

just wondering if that aircrew reception volunteers can choose to work for 1 volunteer day instead of choosing to work all of them? like choosing what days you can work on application form

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boff180
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Re: riat volunteering

Post by boff180 »

Aircrew Reception I think is under AirOps which is Peter's team.

However, I don't think you can, its usually a volunteering start and end date during the RIAT period - helps keep things simple and limits the amount of volunteers needed, and the admin involved in swapping volunteers mid show.

Peter should be able to answer fully for that role though (hopefully) when he is back from ICAS.

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Re: riat volunteering

Post by RIAT Air Ops »

warthog555 wrote:
Sun 18 Dec 2022, 9:46 am
just wondering if that aircrew reception volunteers can choose to work for 1 volunteer day instead of choosing to work all of them?
Unfortunately that's not how it works. When volunteering at RIAT, you are fulfilling a specific role, which is required for a number of days. For some teams, this is only over the public days. But for nearly all the teams within Air Operations, it's a minimum of a six day commitment.

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Re: riat volunteering

Post by RIAT Air Ops »

And for anyone interested, volunteer applications for RIAT 2023 have opened this week. Full details on the official Air Tattoo website, including a current list of vacancies which can be applied for.

There are potentially a handful more vacancies, for very niche roles, available across our Air Operations teams. So if anyone is especially interested in a new challenge, please do let me know, and if you have the right skill sets, you might be get lucky!

Cheers,
Peter

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