TODAY we celebrate our female engineers and in particular here at RAF Honington we introduce Corporal Ogden.
Cpl Ogden works in the Armament Engineering Flight (AEF) here in Support Wing whereby she is currently employed as the Explosive Storage Area controller. She provides engineering and supervisory support across a large array of areas including weapons, munitions, and Aircrew Assisted Escape Systems, otherwise known as ejection seats!
Cpl Ogden’s role involves ensuring all ammunition requests are met in a safe and timely manner, all range requirements are supported, and all explosive safety requirements are adhered to. Cpl Ogden and her team prepare ammunition & pyrotechnics to support and fulfil both training and operational support requirements, and in turn ensure the safe disposal of any surplus or returned ammunition.
Cpl Ogden joined the RAF to learn this trade and also to travel, which is a good job because so far she has been on many tours including Afghanistan, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, Malta, and Djibouti. Cpl Ogden said:
The Air Force has given me a breadth of experiences I would never have been able to have.
Cpl Ogden’s most memorable tour was Afghanistan in 2014 and the closing down of Camp Bastion. She found it ‘an extremely long and challenging tour but it was great to see the actual scale of the work we were putting in to reduce Bastion to a blank slate.’
Cpl Ogden said:
Being a female in Engineering is certainly interesting, it’s a great field to be in, both with the challenges we face as engineers but also the increase of women in STEM fields is a continuous and huge achievement.
This international awareness campaign is raising the profile of women like Cpl Ogden and highlights the amazing career opportunities available to girls and women in this exciting industry.
