03 Mar 09 - Corporal Coates at Cranwell
Ripon Air Cadet Jonathon Coates is currently on a roll. Having recently celebrated his promotion to Corporal he then went on to participate in an action-packed week at the Royal Air Force College, Cranwell, where further excitement awaited him along with a number of fellow cadets.
French Horn player Jonathon, who attends Ripon Grammar School, is a member of 886 (City of Ripon) Squadron Air Training Corps and was joined by 48 other cadet musicians from around the country. Selected from amongst the 35,000 cadets nationwide, they formed the ATC national band for 2009. They spent a week at Cranwell rehearsing with the RAF Regiment Band before staging a concert on the final night.
As well as rehearsing the week included first aid training, command and leadership tasks and drill training culminating in a competition at the end of the week. The cadets also went bowling and one evening attended a "Dining In" night, where they got to experience a formal military dinner. Twenty of the cadets, including Jonathon, spent several hours on board a “ Beech King Air B200”, the newest training aircraft in the RAF inventory. During their flight they performed various manoeuvres including steep turns, stalls & dives.
The course ended with the concert given on the final night. The invited audience of several hundred people, including Air Commodore Ian Stewart, Commandant Air Cadets, was treated to pieces from a broad range of genres. The programme included old favourites such as “The Dambusters” and Jonathon joked that the composer Eric Coates was his Uncle. The combined ATC and Regiment bands also played some more contemporary tunes, such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Band of Brothers. There was also a moving solo from Corporal Hannah Sanders whose father had only just returned from Afghanistan to attend the performance.
Upon returning to the Squadron Jonathon said: "My only regret is that I didn’t apply to go to Cranwell last year." He and his fellow musicians have been invited to perform at the Royal International Air Tattoo in July and to return to Cranwell in October. They are also qualified to wear the Instrumentalist's badge on the brassard of their uniforms.