This week for National Apprenticeship Week, we catch up with three trainees at Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose at Helston.

They each work at 824 Naval Air Squadron, the unit at Culdrose which trains all the Merlin Mk2 anti-submarine-hunting helicopter air and ground crews.

They are part of around 200 sailors at Culdrose who have recently joined the navy and still learning the skills needed before they are being posted to frontline squadrons on board ships, such as the navy's new aircraft carriers.

They will each have already completed 10 weeks of basic training at HMS Raleigh at Torpoint and then 23 weeks at HMS Sultan at Portsmouth, before joining Culdrose's 32-week engineering training programme.

Air Engineering Technician Georgia Southway, 22, is from Newport in South Wales.

She said:

"I served in the reserves for five years and decided I enjoyed it so much I wanted to do it full-time. I was posted to Culdrose last November. We've done a lot of work in classroom learning all the theory. I also do flight servicing and general maintenance on the aircraft. Also, help with marshalling aircraft out on the airfield. The training is challenging, but rewarding in the end."

Air Engineering Technician Jordan Gott, 24, is from Fareham, Portsmouth.

He said:

"I am very early on in my training here at 824 squadron. The navy, alongside my training, is allowing me to put that on hold so I can go and represent the navy at rugby, which is good because I get the best of both – I get the sport and I get the training done. I'll continue my training from May to November. I love the navy. I love being surrounded by people and every day is different."

Air Engineering Technician George Dean, 24, is from Church Stretton in Shropshire.

He said:

"My role is to help repair the Merlin in the hangar and make sure the flight capability of 824 is at max-readiness at all times. There are so many jobs involved: component location, fault diagnosis, ground-runs, before-flight testing, after-flight testing – there are so many different parts that all come together to make a working aircraft.

"While it can come across as a unique form of training, a lot of the time it does come down to one-on-one apprenticeship-style learning. Often you'll get pinged by a leading hand for a single big job, and you'll spend all day on that job learning from him.

"So, it's a lot of one-on-one learning. In the navy, everyone wants to help you. If you are willing to put the effort in, no one will ever say 'no'."