On the 3rd December 2023, Wilson’s School CCF RAF took a 90 minute drive to RAF Halton to compete in the Regionals for the Air Squadron Trophy Competition.
At 6:30, after waking up at around 4am, we departed Wilson’s School in a coach heading towards RAF Halton. We consisted of a team of 13 with one reserve ranging from year 10s to year 13s and were led by Flight Sergeant Mircheva and Flight Sergeant Fernando. After our arrival at 8:10, we instantly were thrown into the competition with the Military Knowledge Test, however our good preparation allowed us to do well in these tests. After this, we had a meagre 45 minutes to prepare our uniform and warm up for our drill sequence which led to the team performing our marching as commanded by Flight Sergeant Mircheva. We went into the competition with much doubt over our drill performance however, once again, preparation paid off as we executed one of the best drill sequences we ever had as a squad (despite one or two slip-ups) and at the end of the sequence, we left both the drill assessors and ourselves in shock at our performance.
After this there was a short break where we quickly ate, revised and talked before quickly preparing ourselves for the command tasks (where the team is put into a situation and needs to solve a problem). After a brief from team leader Flight Sergeant Mircheva, we entered a room with 3 tasks to complete to try and unlock a padlock. Unfortunately , the complex task and little time of 20 minutes led to us not being able to complete the task however through out the task we showed resilience, teamwork and perseverance. From then on the team separated into their 4 different disciplines. First was the shooting team which consisted of 4 cadets (including myself) led by Flight Sergeant Mircheva and we used the Scorpion Cadet Air Rifle to shoot at the target and attempt to achieve the smallest grouping possible. We scored well with groupings ranging from 19-26mm. The Aircraft Recognition team (4 cadets) took a test of 30 questions led by Cadet Marcoz, where they were shown 30 planes out of a list of 200 and had to name all of them to score points. The First Aid team (4 cadets) were led by Corporal Kachiraju and were put in a car crash situation and had to perform on 3 casualties while assessing the dangers of a car crash. The final discipline was drone flying which was conducted by Cadet Brozowskii who performed well but this discipline was not counted in the final result.
After this tiring day came the final parade at 5:30 where the final scores were announced. The top 3 results for each discipline were announced first before the final podium was revealed. The top 3 teams from each region made it through to the National Competition. It began with command task - despite the huge effort from the whole team, we were not on the podium. Then came the shooting results and once again despite our great groupings, we did not make the podium. Team spirt was low however a third place in Aircraft Recognition and another Third place in First Aid gave us hope followed by a win in both Military Knowledge and Drill. This led to excitement and tension as the final results were announced. Third place was Maidstone Grammar School, Second Place was Dulwich College and finally… Wilson’s School came first!!! We were presented with our winner’s trophy and celebrations erupted. We were through to the National Air Squadron Trophy Competition in March 2024!
Flight Sergeant Jerome Fernando later told me in an interview that “"As a team, we put in a tremendous amount of effort, however, as usual, nothing goes to plan. Despite this, we performed at our best, overcoming everything that was thrown at us, consequently emerging successful. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to train such an ambitious team and I am proud of them all." and Flight Sergeant Stella Mircheva said that “It was an incredibly rewarding experience - to be able to work with this amazing team and to see all our hard work pay off”.
As a whole we worked very hard and were led by two fantastic leaders which led to our victory in Regionals and hopefully another in Nationals.
