A former Gorleston high school student has gone from tinkering with motorbikes to working on state-of-the-art British Army attack helicopters.

Lance corporal Jude Webster is a Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers aircraft technician, based at Wattisham Flying Station in Suffolk with 3 Regiment Army Air Corps.

He works on AH-64E Apache attack helicopters, which have been in service since 2021, and used to love working on motorcycles growing up.

Great Yarmouth Mercury: Lance Corporal Jude Webster is a Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers aircraft technician Picture: Cpl Stone British ArmyLance Corporal Jude Webster is a Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers aircraft technician Picture: Cpl Stone British Army (Image: Cpl Stone British Army)

After finishing his studies at Cliff Park high school, L/Cpl Webster joined the army three years ago.

The 19-year-old said: “I didn’t want to go to university and get in debt, and I wanted a bit of a different career that gave me good skills and qualifications - the army seemed to fit that.

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“I went down the engineering route because I always had motorbikes growing up and would take them apart and try and put them back together again.

Great Yarmouth Mercury: Lance Corporal Jude Webster working on an Apache Picture: Cpl Stone British ArmyLance Corporal Jude Webster working on an Apache Picture: Cpl Stone British Army (Image: Cpl Stone British Army)

"I’ve made quite a step up from that to be working on the Apache.”

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L/Cpl is currently deployed on Exercise Iron Titan on Salisbury Plain as part of a team of technicians working in the field to keep Apaches in flying and fighting condition.

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He is one of 8,000 troops taking part and is relishing the challenge.

He said: “At Wattisham, we’re working in an enclosed hangar with all the tools and spares we need to hand - being out in the field makes it that much harder to do the job.

“We have to plan more, think about the kind of jobs we might have to do and make sure we deploy with everything needed to keep the helicopters flying, but also be willing to improvise.

“Living in the field, we also have to work to keep ourselves in good condition to be able to do our job.

"There’s no room for error because we’re not firing blanks on exercise, we’re doing our actual job with a lot of responsibility to ensure aircraft are well-maintained and safe to fly.”