Page 32 - Cadet Review Autumn 2024

CEY Wing ATC HAG
DYKE
The Hag Dyke camp is a unique cadet experience, designed to develop and further survival, leadership and navigational expertise amongst members of
the Air Training Corps (RAFAC). The camp is broken down into two courses, the survival course and
the senior course, and while the senior course is a relatively new invention, the year 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the camp’s establishment, and hence, the 50th year since the survival course began.
The survival course exists not only to teach, but also to test a cadet’s ability to work, perform and function as a team under pressure. The cadet’s physical and mental resilience is challenged through a variety of exercises, created to place them in situations unlike anything else they will have experienced in cadet or civilian life. More so than anything else, however, the course aims to develop the cadet’s confidence and ability to act under pressure, providing them with a unique new skillset to employ elsewhere in Air Cadet life.
As a continuation of the survival course, the senior course provides an opportunity to expand upon the skills established in the survival course, for those who wish to come back for more. While the difficulty of the training increases, the pressure eases, forcing the senior cadets to take accountability for their
own admin and discipline in the absence of extreme time pressure. As only 5 or 6 cadets embark upon this course annually, the course also develops team cohesion, and an ability to accomplish difficult tasks as a small unit. The course concludes with some more traditional adventure training, marking the end of each senior cadet’s Hag Dyke experience.
To mark ‘50 years’ since the Hag Dyke camp began, Central & East Yorkshire Wing have dedicated a memorial bench to Wing Commander Ray Kidd, to be erected by the Hag Dyke Chapel. Additionally,
an event and barbeque were hosted on the last
full day of Hag Dyke 2024, to which a number of
key figures from the camp's past were invited. The event in glorious sunshine was also marked by the timely flyby of the Coastguard Search and Rescue helicopter over the camp and concluded with a cadet verses staff Rounders match as the sunset fell across the hills. Less than twelve hours later, the cadets were going back down the hill for the 50th but certainly not final time, looking forwards to the camp’s future.
In the image to the right,the gentleman dressed in blue is Alan Hinks OBE, who visited and gave a guest presentation to the Junior Course. A Yorkshireman and a Himalayan high-altitude mountaineer from Richmond in North Yorkshire, he is the first British mountaineer to claim all fourteen Himalayan eight- thousands' (mountains above 8,000 m (26,247 ft) in height), which he completed on 30th May 2005.
32 CADET REVIEW AUTUMN 2024