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Air Techs are not a "Support Trades"

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Northernguardian

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After 30+ years in the CF as an aircraft technician, now a manager, I find it a bit insulting to find aircraft technicians lumped into a group called "support trades" along with non-air trades (non 500 series). Note that there is a separate group - "air crew trades." I take it that since air crew are not "support," they must comprise the true (and thus superior) rest of the "air force." Sort of like comparing combat arms trades to cooks feeding them.

I'm not sure who created this group, probably aircrew who actually believes that this is a fair place to put maintainers. I doubt there was any malice involved, and I am not pointing any fingers.  It should be remembered that the "air force" has long given preferential treatment to aircrew. There has always been an under appreciation of the contributions of our technicians by aircrew, and the subordination of our maintenance community to aircrew has been going on for as long as there has been an "air force" in this country. As a result, this touches a nerve.

Let me set you (??) straight. There are over 4000 highly trained AVS, AVN, and ACS technicians in the CF who wear the same hat badge as aircrew do. Aircraft technicians make up the bulk of the air force. Without us, there would be no aircraft to fly, no air force. Period. We ARE the air force, not some support element. We are just as important as any operator on the team.

Suggest you create a group called Aircraft maintenance trades.

Better still, why don't we get our own website - airforce.ca, and go blue? Why are we on an army website?
 
Northernguardian said:
After 30+ years in the CF as an aircraft technician, now a manager, I find it a bit insulting to find aircraft technicians lumped into a group called "support trades" along with non-air trades (non 500 series). Note that there is a separate group - "air crew trades." I take it that since air crew are not "support," they must comprise the true (and thus superior) rest of the "air force." Sort of like comparing combat arms trades to cooks feeding them.

I'm not sure who created this group, probably aircrew who actually believes that this is a fair place to put maintainers. I doubt there was any malice involved, and I am not pointing any fingers.  It should be remembered that the "air force" has long given preferential treatment to aircrew. There has always been an under appreciation of the contributions of our technicians by aircrew, and the subordination of our maintenance community to aircrew has been going on for as long as there has been an "air force" in this country. As a result, this touches a nerve.

Let me set you (??) straight. There are over 4000 highly trained AVS, AVN, and ACS technicians in the CF who wear the same hat badge as aircrew do. Aircraft technicians make up the bulk of the air force. Without us, there would be no aircraft to fly, no air force. Period. We ARE the air force, not some support element. We are just as important as any operator on the team.

Suggest you create a group called Aircraft maintenance trades.

Better still, why don't we get our own website - airforce.ca, and go blue? Why are we on an army website?

Let ME set YOU straight.  Since when have "operators" been "superior" (your word) to support troops, in ANY element?

I think your post shows an extreme lack of self-esteem - you're arguing over labels.

Mr. Bobbitt has already created an airforce board here - try going to here:  http://forums.air-force.ca

Oh - and for the record - during my career I was both an "operator" (Infmn) and a "support trade" (Adm Clk/RMS Clk), and I never felt "inferior" as a support trade, nor did I feel that others (aside from young 'uns fresh from Battle School) ever felt "superior" to me in any way.


Roy Harding
 
You're not that new here, but your powers of observation are lacking.

If you prefer to see the same info in a different colour, check out www.air-force.ca, also, air-force.ca is still a work in progress so why you're getting riled up over something that's very new to army.ca, milnet.ca, etc is quite surprising to me. The tone in your post is not what I'd expect from an MWO with 30+ years in. I find it confrontational when there's no need for it. You could have just asked the question instead of automatically assuming it was the aircrew with our "superiority complex" that did it.

You're talking about being insulted yet you freely throw out the same old anti-aircrew statements that I hear all the time. The simple fact of the matter is yes, we can't fly without you, but you wouldn't have a job without us. We're mutually dependant on each other, I don't know why you can't see that. This whole "we ARE the air force" business is a pretty lame.
 
Locked.  Because there's really no where else for this discussion to go and rebuttal can't possibly result in an improved atmosphere for further discussion.

Army.ca Staff
 
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