First trainees graduate from Navy Accelerated Apprenticeship Scheme

Maritime February 11, 2020

The first group of personnel have completed the Accelerated Apprenticeship Scheme for Air Engineering within the Royal Navy.

The first group of trainees in the Navy’s Accelerated Apprenticeship Scheme for Air engineering graduated with qualifications at an event at HMS Sultan. The ceremony also saw the first full class of Air Engineering Technicians pass out of RNAESS to proceed directly to the Lightning Force at RAF Marham.

These will be the first AETs who begin their careers on Lightning II; as to date, the AETs employed on the force have come from other aircraft types. Once qualified, these sailors will be at the forefront of the most modern defence aviation, maintaining the UK Fleet of F35 jets.

Apprentice Sam Cresswell said: “I wanted to go to university but didn’t want to be sat in the classroom all the time. When I saw this come up, with a good career, offering good money, working in something I wanted to do, I knew it was for me.”

“I’d done a BTEC level 3 in general engineering and didn’t really know aircraft, so it was quite scary to start with, but with the training pipeline and instructors we have it’s not been too difficult to learn everything needed to carry out my job, so I’m not that worried anymore.

As the Lightning Force grows, they will be involved in embarkations on the QEC class carriers. The end of the Air Engineering course now marks the successful completion of accelerated apprenticeships across all three Engineering Branch specialisations, with Marine Engineers also trained at HMS Sultan and Weapons Engineering from HMS Collingwood already serving in a variety of roles.

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aircraft maintenance Apprenticeship Programme engineering F35 Navy RAF Marham Training