PGSC - Potential Gunners Selection Course :: 21st March 2011 - 24th March 2011

If you're reading this and applying to the RAF, I'll tell you literally how the PGSC goes day in day out, also some tips. If not skip down to WEDNESDAY and look for "Skirmish" if you want to see the real hard bit. If you're applying to the RAF Regiment and you've made it this far, trust me you have what it takes physically, just don't go there expecting it to be a breeze, because it's not. It very much depends on what bunch of lads you get put with as well, during the Skirmish there was 3 times I was actually about to stand up and withdraw myself, but you look at the lads around you, struggling just as much as you, then you'll look over at the mental one that's just morale in a box, and he'll be thrusting his crotch at you or something equally gay or funny... After that, you'll just laugh it off, and get on with it.


Monday:
Arrive at Bury St Edmunds train station, coach will pick you up at 2100 along with your corporal or staff sargeant. Just don't make yourself stand out, stand up straight, put your bag on the floor and put your hands behind your back. You're just another face.
The coach will take you back to RAF Barnham, which is a short coach trip (5 minutes) from RAF Honington, the home of the regiment (1 sqd, 2 sqd, 15 + 27 squadron are based there).
You arrive at Barnham at roughly half 9, then you're over in the briefing room opposite the block to collect your bibs + water bottles with your allocated number on (mine was 10). MAKE SURE YOU WASH THE WATER BOTTLES COZ THEY DON'T, THEY'RE FUCKING MINGING. Mine had like murky water just chilling in the bottom of it haha.
After that, off to the block, put your shit away in the box under your bunk,  make your bed + it's lights out, be swift coz I spent ages putting everything away tidily so I wouldn't take long in the morning... Forgot to make my fucking bed, looked like a right prick when the Corporal comes in and goes "What the fuck are you doing 10" and all you've got to reply with is "Putting my pillow case on cpl" .. It's very likely you won't sleep, I got 3 hours coz I was just excited for the next day. Don't worry about it.


TUESDAY - DAY 1 OF PHYS (be prepared for a 0600 wake up call :P):
Alright, day 1 usually consists off:
Bleep test
Press ups test
Sit ups test
Swim test
Skirmish
Instead, the fucking indian army or some shit was at Honington, so our Skirmish got postponed until wednesday. But no dramas there because having it as the VERY last thing you do is awesome, you can just put 110% in to it knowing you've got no more phys until you want to get off your lazy arse at home and do it.
Instead, our Skirmish was replaced by the Assault Course which is meant to be the last thing you do on wednesday. Now I'll tell you my scores and post whether I got selected or not once I hear back from them.
BY THE WAY: THERE ARE NO REQUIREMENTS FOR PRESS UPS/SIT UPS, IT'S ALL BEST EFFORT, YOU HAVE TO GET AT LEAST 9.1 ON THE BLEEP TEST THOUGH.
Bleep test - 11.2
Press ups in 60 seconds - 60
Sit ups in 60 seconds - 55
Swim test - Consisted of swimming 4 lengths (100M) in your denims (the carkey coverals), any front stroke allowed, and then treading water for 2 minutes at the end. Now this is just pass or fail, there's no max efforts or anything. I am a SHIT swimmer, and I just about passed it. As long as you do it they don't care how slow it takes.
Assault course - After your swim test and all of that, you're pretty knackered, you can feel your muscles working overtime from the weight of the denims. They beasted us for about 20 minutes with a lot of running, press ups, and leopard crawling ( I FUCKING HATE CRAWLING ). After the beasting and you're all hanging out your arses, they let you loose 2 at a time for your best timed effort on the assault course, make sure to pay attention to their demonstrations at the start as if you do it wrong they'll make you run around the obstacle and do it again. TIP: Practise pull ups for the 9 ft wall, that's a bitch, when you're that fucked, jumping high enough to get your elbows on is really hard, just try to grab it with your fingertips, then pull yourself up; trust me it's easier. (Also, there are 3 obstacles that are about 12-15ft off the ground with no safety equipment, if you fall you'll probably break a limb. If you don't have a head for heights, DON'T LOOK DOWN, suck it up + get on with it, go in with confidence but caution and you'll do fine.)
After that, you're done for the day (You don't get told your score on the assault course, but you've got to do it in under 5 minutes 15 seconds, anyone that doesn't gets sent home, in my PGSC that was 19, it went from 40 down to 21).
TIP: When you meet the PTI's, you will think they are wankers, but it's their job at the end of the day, DO NOT CROSS YOUR ARMS, PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HIPS, OR DO ANYTHING THEY HAVEN'T TOLD YOU TO DO. You will get beasted for it, if you're told to stand up, do so with your hands behind your back. If you're told to sit down, don't slouch like a slob and stand out, just sit normally like everyone else and blend in. You're just a number to them, keep it that way. Speak when spoken to as well, do not ignore them.
Also, all the phys tests are done one after the other, you have a few briefings about pay+benefits/TG course/regiment life etc before you start them.


WEDNESDAY - 2ND DAY OF PHYS:
Day 2 consists off:
3 mile run
Skirmish : Its usually the assault course but we did it yesterday so skirmish took its place.
Now first of all, the 3 mile run, standard stuff, once again depends the lads your with. Cpl said the standard of ours was really high so we all had to push ourselves that extra bit harder to stand out. First 1.5 miles is squadded, you run at the PTI's pace, just stick to it and conserve your energy, after that you stop, have 30 seconds to have a quick drink, I'd advise just wetting your mouth rather than drinking otherwise you'll probably be sick, drink loads (aim for 500ML) while you're on the coach going to Honington instead. Also, if you drink QUICKLY then run back to the starting line, you'll be at the front, makes life a lot easier for you.
Now my scores:
3 mile run - 9 minutes 8 seconds (My PJFT i did it in 9:48, I took 40 seconds off my time just coz of the lads I was with) : Guy called Dan, fucking machine, me him + Jason raced off the line, Jason 1st Dan 2nd Me 3rd. Now Dan was clearly the fittest, so I didn't aim to overtake him, I just aimed to stay on his arse the whole race, sure enough Jason felt the effects of the fast start and dropped behind (ended up 5th out of 21), me and Jason stayed up the front along with another little wippet that had the same idea as me, but he just sprinted past me on the last few hundred metres and I couldn't keep up, ended up 3rd/21.



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SKIRMISH - The fucking bitch of an exercise. Goes on for about 60-90 minutes, feels like a fucking week though. What they do is put a school-bell type thing in the middle of the field, if you want to give up, you ring the bell and you get withdrawn. They CANNOT force you to withdraw or withdraw you unless on medical grounds, so it's just a case of mind over matter. Suck it up and get on with it. I'll put it in bullet points:

You wear: Denims + helmet.
AS SOON AS YOU START, RUN EVERYWHERE. EVEN STANDING STILL YOU MUST JOG IN THE SPOT GETTING YOUR KNEES HIGH. OR EVERYONE WILL GET BEASTED.
1) Start: beasting for a while, anyone who does the SLIGHTEST thing wrong (one person messes up, the whole lot of you will get beasted), the pti will either say 20 press ups or shout "GOLF BALL", you have to run to the building that looks like a golf ball, touch it and run back, last one gets press ups. Then they will just take the piss out of you to see how you react, they'll say "Lie down" and you have to jump down quickly, or you'll be doing press ups if you're too slow, then when they say "Stand up" you obviously stand back up as quick as you can or press ups, if they say "on your back", you jump down (or flip from your front) to your back, you might get kicked in the face by someone else as you don't have time to space out, just be prepared, you've got your helmet on anyway. They'll probably make you line up and do sets of 20 press ups as well, just coz they can inbetween these. You also do something thats like run/grenade/machine gun. The PTI will shout "Run out to me, GO", and they will run backwards so the slower you run the further you have to go, then they will shout "GRENADE" and you have to dive down and hit the deck + leopard crawl (once again walking backwards, slower you crawl the further you have to go), and I mean DIVE, you don't hit the floor fast enough you'll probably get beasted doing press ups while everyone pities you. But after you crawl out to them, you stand up and run back. If at any point they shout "MACHINE GUN" you have to flip to your back and sort of do a backwards leopard crawl, facing upwards, wierd thing.

2) You get put into 4 groups, my first group:
Jerrycans, I'm not aware of the weight of the jerrycans but they were bloody heavy, and there was 2 of them. You had to carry both the jerry cans, sprint out to a 20M mark as quick as you can, then leopard crawl back, tag your team-mate and he'd leopard crawl out, pick the jerry cans up + sprint back. If your jerrycans fall over (be careful when you place them down), your team will get 20 press ups. Bare in mind you're still running, even on the spot while waiting. Losing team back gets 20 press ups. You do this race however many times they tell you to, ours went on 4 times, doesn't sound like much but you try doing it pal. Then he made us do some crawling and sprinting just coz he could while the other groups finished up.

3) My next group was: Buddy exercises, you do that sprint/grenade/machine gun thing however many times the pti's want to make the point, ours was about 5 I wasn't really paying attention. Then you pair up with whoever is standing next to you at the time (try to stand next to the littlest lad possible, I got paired with a fucking ex-marine hench lad). You then medevac your partner about 20M for at least 5 times, which means you put your arms under their armpits and bring your hands up to form a sort of C shape, they let their body go limp, and you drag their body weight the 20M while you run backwards, you then swap and they carry you the 20M back, losing pair gets 20 press ups each race (still jogging on the spot, running everywhere, still getting 20 press ups for crossing arms/hands on hips etc). After this, more sprint/grenade while you wait for other groups to finish.

4) Next group was the stretcher race. It's a stretcher weighing 75kg and 4 of you carry it at a time. Depending on how many people have given up, the rest of your group run behind the stretcher and if you put your outside hand up they will take over for you, don't give up too often otherwise nobody gets a rest (we still had everyone in our group left coz we were encouraging each other, 4 on the stretcher and 2 running behind). You have to run about 300-400M in 2 minutes carrying the stretcher, sounds a long time but after everything else we were all hanging out our arses and we didn't make it in time. If you don't make it round in time, you do it again until you do. We did it 5 times doing press ups + golf ball inbetween attempts for doing it too slow. We still didn't make it, but as I say it's just a case of not giving up, no matter if they tell you to ring the bell or not, just KEEP moving and keep encouraging each other. We kept doing this with the beastings until the other groups had finished.

5) You all line up again having done all the group activities and get beasted with press ups/golf ball + sprint/grenade for what feels like a year, probably about 10-15 minutes. At this point EVERYONE is hanging out their arse, so the PTI's will be saying (their words to us were) "This is fucking pathetic gents, you're barely moving. We're going to do every single thing again, and you better fucking do it in time this time round!" .. They got us all into groups again, just about to do the exercises. At this point we dropped from about 18-13, people just went "Oh fuck that" and rang the bell. Straight after this PTI's lined everyone up again, a brief beasting just to see if anyone else wants to drop out (there was 13 left at the end of ours, they wanted to wittle it down to below 10). But they realised nobody was leaving. I even got cramp doing the golf ball run, but I kept hopping stretching my leg towards there with a PTI screaming in my face telling me to stop dancing, this in turn made me last back, meaning I got 20 press ups, which I couldn't complete, I did 18 and had 6 attempts at lifting my body weight again before collapsing. The PTI's are saying "Ring that fucking bell" but you just reply no and have another attempt. After a while they tell you to stop and stand up + call you pathetic. Immediately after this everyone had to do 10 press ups for me failing. Then they announced the end of skirmish, the relief is fucking amazing. You then go through static stretches with the PTI's and have a bit of banter, they stop being twats at this point.



It's purely mental strength, if you can do the minimum 40 press ups + you complete the 3 mile run under the 10m30s allowed, you CAN do this. You just need to tune your head out and get on with it. You'll be amazed what your body can do.
If you want a tip, there was 3 times I was about to ring the bell. This is what made me stop myself:
First time: Thought about going back home and when people asked "How did you get on!?" having to reply "Ah dropped out mate". No way jose.
Second time: I thought I've done the first day and the 3 mile run and I'm one of the 21 left, I'm obviously fit enough, stop being a pussy or all that pain of day 1/3 mile run will just be put to waste, and I'm waiting 6 months to do it again. Also the thought of getting a SHIT job that I won't enjoy and doing it for the rest of my life, just coz I'm too much of a little nancy boy to crawl 20M, fuck that.
Third time: Looked over and saw someone dancing discretely behind the PTI's back. That made it for me, I swore to myself I will not be on the end of that fucking bell, "don't be a bellend, they're all doing it, so can you!" was the phrase that rattled around my head :)



Hopefully anyone reading this thinking of applying for RAF Regiment Gunner will find this helpful. Honestly I don't regret doing it at all, was a great laugh, great bit of banter, and at the end of the day, so fucking fun & exciting. This is what I signed up to do, this is what it's all about.

Here's a quick test, if you hear jokes about tragedies (diana's death, new orleans hurricane, japan tsunami etc) and think "Yeah that's quite funny, but shame about the less fortunate", you're just a normal British person, get a job on civvi street, get married and have 2.5 kids.
If you hear them, piss yourself laughing and feel compelled to tell another, join the RAF Regiment.
If you hear them, think "That's not funny you absolute cunthole, those people died!" .. Join the Military Police :)