Your space

If you're thinking that you'll get your own personal room and space at Basic then you're in for a big surprise, throughout basic training and indeed most of your future career you will be in shared accommodation with between 5 and 20 other aircraftsmen/women, your space will be made up of a 6 foot long bed, 2 wardrobes and a bedside cabinet.
The whole point of this simplicity is to allow you to adapt to a simplified and straight forward lifestyle with all your civilian and military uniform in a neat and tidy place and close at hand, also means you get used to working and living with a variety of different people with different backgrounds, for example I was one of only a few people on my course who was from London with a background in the cadet forces, other recruits were from all over the UK and Ireland with varieties in work and education such as college, uni, or straight out of secondary school so getting to know new people who I would be working and living with was beneficial to my completion of basic training and meant I had familiar faces to talk to when I went to my first base.

Graduation

The final day of graduation was a mass of timings and checks, from breakfast through morning practice to the final ceremony in the afternoon, a very glamouress affair to say the least with the parents and family members of the recruits all mingled in with members of the forces and the OC of Halton all watching as we performed to our very best, our graduation parade went off without a hitch and was applauded energetically from the stands before the final march on where we dispersed tomour families for hugs, pictures and a few drinks at them on-base bar.
To say I was relieved that basic training was over is an understatement but at the same time I would do it again because personally it was enjoyable, some days i genuinely questioned if I was doing the right thing joining up however I loved the people I training with, I respected the NCO's who taught us and I adored the facilities and equipment available to us therefore given the chnace I would happily go back to and go again.

The Final Week

The last week before Graduation is by far the hardest and most stressful week of all, here all your exams should be done and its just constant back to back work on: fitness, drill and uniform.
You'll typically find that you will do at least 1 session of fitness either early morning or late afternoon, 2 sessions of drill/graduation prep each day and at least 1-2 hours a day of uniform checking and sorting with the NCO's, I would highly reccomend that you make the most of these sessions as the Corporals are on hand with you to help with any detail you are unsure of or struggling with to get right, use the Corporals to your advantage!

Now the hard bit starts...

After Blue Warrior the hardest part of the course begins, we were bombarded with everyday fitness, plenty of final lessons and hours of drill to prepare us for our graduation in 2-3 weeks time alongside our final written exams of which failing to pass would knock us back to day 00, determination was at its highest by far at this time amongst all of us.

Blue Warrior

Blue Warrior is the weekend long exercise you will partake in at the end of IFPT, while not going into to much detail it will involve bringing together all of the elements you have learned so far and applying them in a practical sense.
Personally I found this to be the most enjoyable part of the whole course as I had loads of fun while working well with my section and really honing the skills the Regiment taught me, word of warning though I found the Corporals tended to play pranks with each other (soldier humour + repeating the Op regularly = need for entertainment) so be prepared to act quickly to a rapidly changing situation and also being messed around mentally to keep you on your toes.

Soldier time.

During IFPT you are trained and tested on the skills the RAF and indeed the Ministry of Defence considers vital in the modern field of warfare, besides weapons training you are also taught the basics of general and combat first aid which in real life would help to save a person's life, alongside that you are given the knowledge of how to organise yourselves in the field in terms of what kit to take, how to pack and importantly how to carry it, the last thing you need is a long day on an operation and your backs gone from poor fitting.

The change over.

Week 3 I found to be a big step, here you will be doing more lessons and Ped but you will also start receiving your equipment and basic knowledge for your IFPT weeks (Intial Force Protection Training), on these 4 weeks you will be trained and tested and everything that people consider to be true soldiering, some elements will be logical and almost common sense, other elements will really surprise you and make you think "huh, that's pretty cool"
And if there was ever a time thus far through training where team work was necessary it absolutely is during these 4 weeks the RAF Regiment push you hard throughout and fully encourage helping each other out.