The Falmouth engineer who knew Culdrose’s Merlins before she signed up

Most people who fix Royal Navy helicopters for a living start young, straight from school or college, and spend a couple of years learning a trade they have never touched before. Alison Houghton did it the other way round. She had already been fixing them for 18 years before she put the uniform on.

📷Credit: LPhot Henry Parks / UK Ministry of Defence, Crown Copyright

A route into the Fleet Air Arm nobody expects

Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose has recruited its first air engineer under a new scheme that recognises people who already have industrial experience. Would-be air engineers usually join the Royal Navy at a young age with no specific background, then spend two years training, first at HMS Sultan at Gosport and then on the job at one of the Fleet Air Arm’s air stations.

Alison, 39 and originally from Falmouth, joined the Navy directly as a petty officer air engineering technician instead, after 18 years working at Culdrose as an industry contractor. The route is known as a “zig-zag pathway”, and it exists because someone who has spent years in the private sector can already hold many of the skills the Navy needs.

“It felt like the right thing to do,” she said. “I know the aircraft already, that’s the easy bit. The hardest thing is remembering that I am not in my civilian role anymore.”

Eighteen years on the same helicopters

Within the Merlin fleet, aircraft are rotated out of frontline flying and spend several months in a process called depth maintenance, stripped down and rebuilt before they go back to flying duties. That work is run under contract by the company Serco, and it is where Alison spent almost two decades.

“I did my degree in aircraft engineering, that was 20 years ago,” she said. “I got a job at Culdrose working as a fitter’s mate for Serco in depth maintenance. Over the next 18 years I rose to become a senior supervisor, and I was working on Merlins the whole time.”

As a part-time naval reservist, Alison had already completed her basic naval training at HMS Raleigh, which every rating goes through when they join the service. From there, just a few weeks of extra training was enough to bring her up to speed to join 824 Naval Air Squadron, the Royal Navy’s training unit for both engineers and aircrew, which is also kept at high readiness to respond to incidents in UK waters.

“This feels natural,” she said. “I think there are a lot of people that would also like to do this. They are waiting to see how I got on down here.”

📷Credit: LPhot Henry Parks / UK Ministry of Defence, Crown Copyright

‘She’s going to be invaluable’

The squadron’s air engineering officer, Lieutenant Commander Chris “Paddy” Ashdown, said Alison has now joined the rest of the maintenance team doing fault diagnosis and working aircraft on the line.

“I am really excited by the zig-zag course pathway,” he said. “There’s a lot of talent out there to be employed, and it was great to interview Alison. She has the experience of working on Merlin and she’s gone through a training pipeline at Serco. That means she’s worked her way up to supervisor, so she understands what it is like for our trainees and understands the role from their perspective.

“She’s already got leadership skills, and she can bring her experience of working in depth, and we can learn from that too. She’s going to be invaluable with her maintenance knowledge and a great help to my management team.”

Merlin Helicopter Force specialises in anti-submarine warfare, airborne surveillance and control, and maritime patrol, protecting the nation’s nuclear deterrent, the Navy’s aircraft carriers, UK waters and British interests around the world, the same fleet Alison spent 18 years keeping in the air before she ever wore the uniform.

📷Credit: LPhot Henry Parks / UK Ministry of Defence, Crown Copyright