RNUU Take to the Air – Several times each year students from the Royal Navy University Units take to the skies with 727 Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm at Yeovilton for a two week taster of the aviation business and just not a visit to the air traffic control tower.     727 Squadron is the principal Fleet Air Arm ‘flight grading’ unit assessing the ability of potential pilots as potential front line helicopter and fast jet pilots.   It is equipped with five (5) Grob 115E training aircraft, known in UK military service as the TUTOR T1.

The students experienced up to eight hours of instructed flying, as well as visits to local front line helicopter squadrons, as well being taught the basics of flight in a classroom, they were then given the chance to put it into practice with an aerobatics sortie in which students learned how to loop, barrel roll and do a stall turn.   A short air navigation exercise through the local airspace involving formation flying and tail chases was also carried out using three of the TUTOR T1 aircraft in close proximity.  Some Students tried the “Dunker” – Yeovilton’s helicopter crash-at-sea escape trainer.    Units visited were 815 Squadron (LYNX HMA8), 846 and 848 Squadrons (The Junglies) (SEA KING HC4), as well as the (Fixed Wing) Naval Flying Standards Flight operating the HAWK T1.