One of our pupil cadets, L/Cpl Abigail, U5 RAF Section and i/c Team 2 speaks of her recent experience on the NitEx (night expedition):
“Upon arriving on Woodbury Common, we had a briefing on a rescue mission to set out our assignment for the night. After an introduction to set the scene for the night’s events, we sat with our teams and had our ration packs. The food was surprisingly tasty and filled us up.
Before the main event, we started off with some lessons to work on skills to help us prepare for the NitEx event. These skills consisted of camouflage, map reading, field signals, observation, and keeping direction at night and were enjoyed by all of the M5 and U5.
For the main event, we got sorted into our teams while myself and all the other team leaders received our first set of coordinates. For my team, we actually ended up going in the complete wrong direction at the start, but soon realised and corrected ourselves.
Then, after finding the right way to the first checkpoint (without being caught by the sixth formers), we received our first task. After completing all the tasks, while getting caught a few times by the sixth formers, we started to make our way back to base camp to free the captive. My team was definitely feeling the pressure as we had a tight five minutes to crack the code that stood between us and victory. Once we had successfully cracked the code, we celebrated with some well-earned drinks and snacks for everyone, and a special prize for the NitEx winners.
I feel I can confidently speak for everyone when I say that NitEx is the highlight of the RAF calendar, and I was ecstatic to win this year’s NitEx with the help of my winning team members.”
