Senior Leaders Course Report by Corporal O’Neil

On the 11th -17th of July Corporal Galvin and I completed Senior Non Commissioned officers course also known as seniors. This took place at Ohakea Air Force base near Bulls.

The aim of this course was to teach us skills to become a SNCO, throughout the course we had to complete 3 terminals which consisted of teaching, leadership and drill. For teaching we needed to do 2 lessons, one a practical and the other a theory. My practical was on knot tying while the other was on map reading.

My next terminal was leadership, we needed to show that we understood the GSMEAC acronym (Ground – Scenario – Mission – Execution – Admin & Logistics – Command & Signals).  Unfortunately it rained all day which made it hard to complete the tasks, but leadership is always fun because everyone works better as a team and the tasks are always fun to attempt.

The final terminal was Drill, we needed to take on the “flight sergeant roll” and take the flight during a parade. The drill was fun but it was difficult to stand through everyone else’s for that long.

After all that we had a ceremony parade which concluded the week, We got told who got top of course and syndicates and we also got to read through our course reports which mine surprisingly wasn’t even that bad.  I also got to go to number 3 squadron and see the NH90 helicopters, we got a tour from one of the pilots and he explained how he got into the RNZAF this showed us the opportunity we all could have.

Seniors not only taught me skills that I can use at cadets but skills and knowledge that I can use in my everyday life, I made many new friends and got taught things I would have never learnt if I never applied for SNCO. I would definitely recommend anyone that has gone on JNCO to apply because it is great fun.

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