Aircraft Controller

Once you’ve confirmed your eligibility, the joining process is as follows:

• Submit an application

  Once you’ve registered your interest, we’ll be in touch to discuss your options

• Defence Aptitude Assessment (DAA)

  You’ll be tested on: Verbal Reasoning, Numerical Reasoning, Work Rate, Spatial Reasoning, Electrical Comprehension and Mechanical Comprehension.
  To prepare, you can practise the DAA

• Interview

  A formal interview to talk through your suitability for the role. This is normally conducted using your own device over the Shine video platform

• Medical and eye tests

  These are quite comprehensive and must be completed by one of our Ministry of Defence-approved doctors

• Pre-Joining Fitness Test (PJFT)

  This involves completing a 2.4km run on a treadmill within a certain time, at a fitness centre near you

• Candidate Preparation Course (CPC)

  This four-day induction to life in the Royal Navy, including a Swimming Test and a fitness assessment, is a pass or fail course

• Start training

  Once you’ve passed a Security Check, you’ll be offered a place at HMS Raleigh

Your Royal Navy career begins with 10 weeks’ basic training at HMS Raleigh, a shore base in Torpoint, Cornwall. The discipline, teamwork, organisational, firefighting and weapon handling skills you learn here will stay with you right through your career.

Aim to get yourself as fit as possible before you arrive. You’ll be doing a lot of physical exercise, and you’ll find it much easier if you’re already in shape. There’s also a swimming test, so if you can’t swim, make sure you learn by the time you join us.

After phase one training you will spend the next few months developing your professional skills and knowledge across a range of courses intertwined within your Leading Aircraft Controller’s Qualifying Course (LACPQC). 

You will start your phase two training at HMS COLLINGWOOD for 10 weeks, where you will learn all about the on-board Command System and how to operate and transmit on radios, through classroom and practical assessments in a simulator. You will receive basic Leadership training during ARLC and how to survive life at sea during Basic Sea Survival training carried out at the RN’s purpose-built facility within HMS EXCELLENT. 

Your next phase of training will be carried out at the Royal Navy School of Aircraft Control (RNSAC) located within RNAS Yeovilton (Somerset). For the next 15 weeks, you will learn the basics of controlling an Air System from a radar screen, how to react and respond to basic aircraft emergencies, how to interact and liaise with the people on-board the ship and within the Ops Room as well as gainfully employing your Air System tactically under various threats within the maritime domain.  

Once you have mastered these basics the tempo of training will increase and you will return to HMS COLLINGWOOD for a further 14 weeks to complete your final phase of the course within the Aviation Training Element (AvTE) at the Maritime Warfare School (MWS) (in Portsmouth) where you will integrate and apply all that you have learned into bigger and more complicated scenarios within the Ship’s Operations Room and Command Team environment with a live assessment phase (1 week) at sea within this period.  

Once qualified as a controller, attention will be focused on the Leadership aspect of your role on board. This is where attendance at the Royal Navy Leadership Academy (RNLA – located within HMS COLLINGWOOD) is essential. This 4-week intense Leadership course will help you build upon what leadership skills you have gained thus far and apply them into different and more challenging/dynamic situations to adequately prepare you to be an effective Leading Hand employed onboard His Majesty’s Frigate or Destroyer at sea on completion.