Sultan technician achieves silver medal at The Skills Show

An engineering apprentice from HMS Sultan was awarded a silver medal recently at the nation’s biggest skills, apprenticeships and careers event, The Skills Show.

Leading Air Engineering Technician Michael Lee, 27, achieved Silver in the finals of the Aeronautical Engineering: Avionics category of competition.

The apprentice who is based within the Defence College of Technical Training’s Royal Naval Air Engineering and Survival Equipment School (RNAESS) narrowly missed out on Gold to QinetiQ Avionics apprentice Matthew Milford with fellow Royal Navy apprentice LAET James Senior from RNAS Culdrose claiming the Bronze.

Aeronautical Avionics was just one of 55 different skills categories on display to over 80,000 spectators who visited the NEC in Birmingham across the three days of competition.

Michael, who joined the Royal Navy 5 years ago in order to get into engineering, said: “The Skills Show was really interesting. It was really rewarding to take part and step outside of my comfort zone.”

“I’m not sure how far I was off achieving gold as they don’t release the marks, but I can’t have been too far off and I’m just glad I didn’t come last.”

“I joined the navy as it seemed like a good way of getting qualifications and I wanted to get into something hands-on within engineering.

"After the competition aspect was done we got to interact with a lot of the young people who were there and answer lots of questions about what the different aircraft can do and what it’s like being in the RN.”