I joined the Royal Navy in January 2022 and spent 30 weeks at Britannia Royal Naval College completing my initial officer training and commissioning as a Midshipman in August 2022. As an Air Engineering Officer (AEO), the next step was to spend 4 months on a ship, gaining maritime aviation experience. For this, I was deployed onto both the aircraft carriers and sailed with HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH to Oslo, Norway. The ship also had multiple rotary wing squadrons embarked, as well as the F35 jets. This was my first real experience of the naval aviation and it was very exciting to see the jets launching off the aircraft carrier in the middle of the North Sea.
After this I conducted 12 months of air engineering training at HMS SULTAN in Portsmouth. This is a specific Systems Engineering and Management Course that taught me the fundamentals of aeronautical engineering as well as basic practical maintenance skills. The course finished with risk management and mitigation – how you decide if an aircraft is safe to fly with different faults – something that would be very relevant to our next role, if also quite challenging.
I joined 845NAS in January 2024 where I spent 4 months carrying out the final part of my air engineering training. This involved seeing how a squadron operated, learning what my next role involved and understanding the interaction between engineers and pilots. The final stage of training was a four-hour spoken exam, which I successfully completed in May 2024, achieving my Certificate of Competency and becoming a fully trained Air Engineering Officer.
Now the really good bits began! Just a month after finishing my training, I was deployed onto RFA ARGUS at the detachment AEO, responsible for 3 Merlin aircraft and 30 engineers. The aircraft were flying as part of a multi-national exercise in Australia and therefore I was seeing the outcome of my management decisions daily with the aircraft flying around the clock. This level of responsibility is something I really enjoyed and was definitely far above that of any of my peers in civilian jobs. Not only this, but I was also travelling around the world – I had time off whilst the ship was alongside in Australia, Singapore, Brunei, Diego Garcia and South Africa. Not bad for a first trip away!
As 845NAS is a front line squadron, there are always opportunities to go away. This year I completed my Cold Weather Aviation Operators Course in Northern Norway, spending 5 nights living in a tent in the snow, learning how to safely operate in conditions down to -30⁰C. The course finished with the ice breakers – jumping into a frozen lake with all your kit and safely getting yourself out. This was definitely not your normal week at work.
Overall, I have found that being an Air Engineering Officer in the Royal Navy provides a really unique opportunity to utilise and develop your engineering knowledge, whilst also travelling for work and meeting new people.
