hey g 126 ive recently finished a beng in aeronautical engineering. if you have any questions id be happy to answer them.
as far as work experience goes you are not likely to get paid for working in this field as you have no qualifications or experience, i did mine whilst still in school with Bombardier.
If you are in England send a letter to Airbus im sure they would take you in for a week or so to find out what its all about. There are many other companies also such as NATS, Rolls-royce,Quinitec any company who employs aeronautical engineers would be relevant.
I dont think you should be worrying about this too much at this stage though you will have other options later on, for instance during summers between university semesters you can get engineering placements with the companies i mentioned, or even take the entire year out of uni and get paid to work for one of the engineering companies for £12,000 which could cancel your student debt effectively.
Do you know that if you join the RAF before University they will pay you to go to University £5,000 per year if you sign up to work a minimum of 3 years for them after graduating? Dont know if this has changed since i went through but if you are decided that you definitely are going into the RAF why not take the £15K? you will also have guaranteed employment after graduating. Which is very good as out of my entire class only one person has so far secured graduate employment and its not even in an aeronautical field!
Employment oppertunities in this field are limited and very competitive so you need to have the edge which is done through acheiving high marks and attaining relavent work experience (year out).
This has prob given you a bit to think about so mull it over do some research and get back to me if you need any more advice.
good luck
Smoothflier
