For the next month, a team of trainees from RNAS Culdrose at Helston, Cornwall, will be embarked upon aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth in the North Sea to get used to living, working and flying at the sea alongside other aircraft, before being awarded their prestigious flying wings.

The trainees from 824 Naval Air Squadron are entering the final phase of their training and earning their 'sea legs' onboard the 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier which is conducting training in home waters with F-35 Lightning jets embarked off the eastern seaboard of the UK.

Flying their submarine-hunting Merlin Mk2 helicopters from the four-acre flight deck, the students will use all the skills that they have learnt so far during their intensive course, but this time, they will be flying from a moving vessel at sea rather than from their home base in Cornwall or within hi-tech simulators.

The successful pilots, observers (Merlin's weapons/sub-hunting specialists and navigators), aircrewmen (sub-hunting specialists/winch operators) and engineers will go on to frontline squadrons to protect the new aircraft carriers and deliver anti-submarine warfare onboard type 23 frigates.

Trainee air engineers and technicians will have their own baptism of fire, learning how to look after a state-of-the-art aircraft in a hangar onboard a pitching, rolling ship.

Commander Martin Russell, the commanding officer of 824 Naval Air Squadron, said:

"Our students are trained to hunt submarines in the Merlin Mk2, and the culmination of this training is to do this by day and night from a ship.

"To conduct their embarked training in HMS Queen Elizabeth is both an excellent opportunity and an honour. The ship's company of the fleet flagship have been very welcoming, and we have already achieved a good amount of flying."

The Merlins from Culdrose have had the flight deck all to themselves for the past four days. The F-35 fighters from 207 Squadron – flown and maintained by both Royal Navy and Royal Air Force personnel – are due to fly aboard the carrier on Tuesday, January 29, from their home at RAF Marham in Norfolk.