Navy People: From Dreaming to Doing

17 October 2009

Lyneham local Holly Frost began living her dream in September last year when she joined the Royal Australian Navy to train as an aircraft technician.

The former Daramalan College student said, “Being an aircraft technician is pretty much in my family. My Dad was a civilian aircraft technician, my Grandpa was an aircraft technician in the British Navy, and my Grandma was an aircraft technician in the Women’s Royal Navy Service.

“I’ve always enjoyed doing hands-on things and fixing things like my car. I never wanted to work in an office.”

“But they didn’t say ‘join the Navy, join the Navy’. Instead, I rang them and said ‘I joined the Navy’.”

Trainee Seaman Holly is now at the tri-Service School of Technical Training at RAAF Wagga in western NSW.

The course provides instruction in generic trade hand skills, plus aircraft systems theory of operation and detailed component removal and installation.

Holly said, “The best thing about my job is the knowledge I’ve gained, and walking into a hangar and seeing all the different aircraft with the people I’ve grown close to.”

Holly is one of only two females currently on the course. “During the day I get treated just the same as anyone else then, after work, they’re all like my big brothers.”

Holly said she joined the Navy because of the travel. “When I was eight, I left Townsville and travelled around Australia with my parents in a bus for three and a half years, so I love the travel”.

When Holly finishes her training in May 2010, she will become an aircraft technician at HMAS Albatross in Nowra, NSW. She’ll be responsible for ongoing maintenance of aircraft, airframe systems, engines and engine systems at either the flight-line or workshop level.

“I’m looking forward to doing what I’ve set out to do – putting my theory into practice on real flying helicopters,” she said.