Talk:Group captain

Untitled

This concerns the table at the end of the article listing equivalent ranks and the Officer Cadet article. In the RAF at Cranwell, cadets who are not university graduates are Officer Cadets and the articles appear correct about this. However, graduates are Student Officers (SOs) and are in fact commissioned officers, although they are treated identically. The differences are mainly in rank after graduation; an officer cadet becomes an Acting Pilot Officer for 6 months then a Pilot Officer for 2 years before Flying Officer; Student Officers graduate as a Flying Officer, with 6 months' seniority, so their seniority as an officer is effectively back dated 3 years for the time they spent in university. Some specialist entrants, like doctors, chaplains etc, graduate from the shorter Specialist Entrants and Re - Entrants (SERE) course with a higher rank; I believe one consultant surgeon graduated from Cranwell as an Air Commodore. For the table, this just means that the OC rank should be listed as OC or SO.