Sgt Vicky Bowles from 413 (Aldershot) Squadron has just come back from a week's work experience with the RAF.  This is her report.

I put in for the work experience though my Squadron after hearing about the new work experience weeks being offered to ATC cadets.  I am very interested in joining the RAF in the engineering branch so the offer of a place on an Avionics week was right up my street.  They even sent me a ‘rail warrant’ to get there.  I exchanged that at the rail station for a real ticket and I was off one Sunday morning with my bags packs and no clue to who I was going to meet, except they would all be strangers! 

I was a little confused as I thought I was going to RAF Cosford but the papers they sent me said DCAE Cosford.  So I googled it and found DCAE stands for Defence College of Engineering and it was at Cosford.  That’s seemed okay as that’s where my ticket said I was going.

I arrived at the tiny rail station in Cosford and walked down the steps to see this huge RAF base just across the road.  I’d found it!  That was too easy.  I had been told we were going to be met at the station but I could not see anyone.  Silly me, they were waiting behind me at the top of the steps!

The next 5 days was really busy.  Our group of 7 boys and me worked as RAF Trainees for the course and we were really working hands on with aircraft.  We learnt how to make hydraulic systems.  We worked on the air brakes, flaps, slats, and rudder movement systems of a Jaguar GR1.  Then we leant how to power up the Jaguar and do all the maintenance checks to make sure it was safe to fly.

We also learnt how to remove, test and refit pulley systems in an aircraft and ensure all parts of the pulley were the same tightness.

We moved onto a simulator.  It was a Eurofighter Typhoon, the latest bit of super sonic hardware in the RAF.  Strangely, for some reason to do with licensing, the simulator had a Tornado cockpit layout. 

There were other aircraft there being worked on:  Gazelle, Sea King, Tornado F3 and GR1 and Jaguar GR3.  In the work shops we all made a Typhoon out of metal and then polished it and engraved it.

The week was very hard work but well worth it.  It was amazing seeing all the aircraft so close up and actually working on them.  It was a great experience for me and has let me see exactly what engineering in the RAF can offer me as a career.

Everyone was polite and we were treated well.  The staff helped us out when we needed it and we all had a good laugh even while we worked hard. 

I would recommend the work experience to everyone, it was great.   My thanks goes to all the staff at Cosford and Flt Lt Sue Graham who accompanied us for the week.