After a three-year break from any major Squadron-lead shooting activity – 444 (Shoreditch) Squadron Air Cadets have resumed this important cadet activity with significant success.

Since January, 444 Air Cadets have had chance to attend monthly small bore and full bore shooting practices and have had the chance to participate in the Wing shooting competitions.

Rising star (or should that be shooting star?) Corporal Jayasinghe gained his Corps Marksman bagde – the highest level of marksman qualification a cadet can earn earlier in the year and has consistently performed well at 444’s range practices. Many other cadets on the squadron have been awarded Wing and Regional Marksman on the L98A2 rifle, the No 8 Rifle and Air Rifles.

The crowning achievement of the year so far for the Squadron shooting team has been the London Wing Full Bore Shooting Competition, in which the shooting team placed third in the Wing – a major achievement for what is still a relatively inexperienced team.  As well as this team achievement, Corporal Jayasinghe’s score placed him as the third best shot in the entire Wing.

Next on the cards for the Squadron is the training and preparation for the London Wing Small Bore shooting competition and a weekend at Pirbright Ranges under the direction of the Squadron’s shooting officer, Pilot Officer Nicholls RAF VR(T). At Pirbright, one of the Army’s major centres for marksmanship, 444 cadets will have a whole weekend to hone their skills and improve their drills.

In further exciting target shooting related news, the Squadron has recently been granted permission to build its very own air-rifle range. With staff members fully qualified to run ranges, this will mean that cadets at Shoreditch will have significant opportunities to access to undertake all types of marksmanship training which the Air Training Corps offers cadets. This has come at an excellent time for the Squadron, as one of the biggest cadet events of the year – the Inness Sword Competition, which is coming up in September, has a strong shooting element. This year the Squadron hopes to excel in this field, as well as doing well in a number of other areas.

At an Inness Sword competition which 444(Shoreditch) participated in conjunction together with the weekend’s hosts, 12F Squadron and 2324 and 338 Squadrons, the target shooting team again excelled – beating the four other squadrons competing by over 80 points – this time Corporal Carney was the Squadron’s top shot – a particularly notably achievement considering that at the time he was still recovering from a broken leg!

By CI Coralie Young, 444 (Shoreditch) Squadron, London Wing, Air Training Corps