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WannabeCrewman
17th May 2013, 06:11
Morning all,

Just to give a bit of context before going into the meat of this question; I am one of the many NCA holdies currently in the RAF FT pipeline (right at the very beginning of it, to be precise) waiting to start my career. I have completed Airman Aircrew "A Squadron" training, done my SERE Level A, HUET/STASS Training, and have 1 year holding on a 203(R) Squadron, where I acted as a casualty for various SAR training exercises, as well as being a simulated casualty for medical training of SAR rearcrew. A great hold, where I learnt a lot.

Realistically, my operational career wont start until 2018 - just shy of 8 years after joining the service. I then start resettlement 2 years into my first tour, and will be out of the RAF by 2022, as I cant get promoted. The rest of my tale of woe can be found here: http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/514724-aircrew-holdies-length-hold.html.

Anyway, I have now come to the conclusion that it is time for me to seriously look at getting out of the RAF, and to move to another career ladder that I actually stand a chance of climbing. I have wanted to be a crewman/SAR boy since I was about 6 years old, and that hasn't changed - I still have a desire to be the best I can be at my chosen career.

I have already contacted Bristow, who have said they aren't doing ab-initio recruiting until their pool of current military SAR talent has started drying up.

However, there are other companies such as Bond, CHC etc who do operate helicopters, where I can start my way up a career ladder as a crewman. I have already been looking at Bond, but can't find any specific HR Department contact details to call up and ask them directly.

My question is, are there any companies that run ab-initio training "apprenticeships" or career programmes, or recruit ab-initio aircrew out there?

Any advice is greatly appreciated,
Many thanks.