Aircraft Maintenance Apprentice Review

I will break the day to day up into two sections. YEAR 1 + YEAR 2 Studying the EASA curriculum for the modules required to get a recognised civilian License (A license which is unachievable within the company), Each module involved reading course material over 1000 pages occasionally, learning at least 2 or 3 facts on each page in preparation for a multiple choice exam. Where at least 9/10 of the book may not even come up. All carried out within a white walled, slow, monotonous and depressive environment. Learn and dump, Repeat for 13 Exams, it is the only way possible any human can retain that much information. Within the 2 years at the Academy, when you aren't studying you will be doing a rushed mechanical and avionics workshop or spending 2-3 Months learning how to maintain aircraft using training aids and training aircraft, an aspect of the apprenticeship I enjoyed. (As it was the closest to doing the job I wanted to do) YEAR 3 This is the part of the apprenticeship I am currently on, and 3 months in to this part I have not touched an aircraft or done anything close to the job I applied for.

I have learnt how to use a range of hand tools and machines. How to recognise faults on aircraft How to repair metals, composites and wood Riveting Fastener installation Using Sealants Borescoping Wirelocking Variety of hand skills Respect for aircraft Team leadership Project planning Team management Supervising How to say 1-10 in Japanese

When we working on the aircraft within the first two years for roughly 2-3 months, when we were working in the mechanical and avionics workshops, I enjoyed my job. Because it is the sort of work you do as an aircraft mechanic in the real world. The majority of your time will be spent learning the course however. The rest of the time, throughout the learning period, I found it hard to get out of my bed in a morning knowing I would have to sit through 7 Hours of teaching a day, sat down, looking at a whiteboard in what felt like a school. Unsurprisingly, this outlook on the course was similarly shared by the rest of my cohort. All 15.

Extremely poorly. The company is huge, the money behind it is huge, the amount of people working on developing the course, huge. However it never felt that way, often it felt like apprentices were last in the loop. Within 2 years I could say roughly added up; all the loose days and weeks, 2 months were spent feeling useless left in a computer room or a classroom as a study day. With no instructor.

As an employer BAE SYSTEMS have the paperwork and procedures necessary to support a wide variety of personal issues. However locally, at the academy, I rarely felt like I could talk to anybody about my issues. This may have been due to the first time something was brought up as a team, we were told by the local welfare officer, "If you don't like it, quit and find another job". It then became a running joke we would say to each other, but in reality showed how much support the academy were willing to give. There was no warmth felt by any management throughout any of the 2 years there or even by the support staff. It was common to see what the Academy had mentally done to a lot of my team however not many felt they could be helped by the staff there. The only people I personally felt I could rely on were a handful of instructors that made the effort to ask what was wrong when they could see a bunch of miserable apprentices that felt, alone, lost and some, depressed. All they needed were a set of eyes to see what was wrong, a tool everybody was born with but many of the management pretended they didn't have.

Some of the Instructors deserve a 11/10 others a 2/10. From the instructors that gave it all, a great deal of support was given with exam preparation, stress management and developing quizzes, presentations or tools to help us learn. While others faced away and read the notes which we had in front of us. Slowly, quietly and without any enthusiasm or care.

In my role, the time working on the training aircraft, the forward course and the time in the workshops are the best part that has been useful. Out of the 13 exams studied, 2 maybe 3 feel like information that I can take into my role as a mechanic. The actual qualifications, in the company, are useless

Within work no, it was wake up, go to the academy on the bus, work, go home, eat food, study, sleep. Monday to Friday was work, many of us didn't have the money to do so much outside of work, nor did many of us have the time as it was study till its in.

No

Although the qualifications will help me become a licensed engineer in the future. I, alongside most of my peers, if not all, woke up to go to a job I hated, only to be thrown around, lead on, confused all while making my brain retain the 1000 facts required for the exams. I have felt mentally drained and worn down, occasionally depressed because of my job, so it would make me a terrible friend to recommend this apprenticeship. Often days I saw members of my cohort so worn out they were falling asleep sat up in there chairs, or on the floor, thinking the same as me "Should I quit?"

Don't bother, if you would like to be mentally tested with an unnecessarily big exam bank, if you would like to feel like you're on your own and if you would like to feel like everything you do is worth nothing and if you are expecting everything to go badly, then perfect, you will make it through without questioning your life choices and without wishing you were working as a waiter on a cruise ship.