Day 1
I arrived at the Marham Guardroom at about 9:15, feeling nervous and unsure what to expect from my week at the base. I was met by Denise Foggett and David Penny, and I soon realised I had no cause to be nervous because everyone that I met on the base was very friendly and willing to help. After waiting for the other people on work experience that week to turn up, I received a quick health and safety brief, before we went to the Squadron stores to get our protective clothing. I was issued with a green set of overalls and steel toe capped safety boots. Then, we drove round the base, dropping people off at various placements. I was the last to be dropped of because my placement was on the other side of the base. I was met at 13 Squadron by Corporal Steve Newman, who supervised me. Before the proper health and safety brief he took me around the 13 Squadron areas and showed me around the 90th Anniversary Jet, explaining the many features on it. Then, I had lunch in the squadron feeder, which only cost £1.74. This was very good value for the food. After lunch, I had a health and safety brief about what I could expect to be encountering on my placement. Steve took me out to a 13 Squadron Tornado to see a "crew-in", which was basically seeing off the aircraft and checking it before it flew. Then, we went and looked around a HAS (Hardened Aircraft Shelter) before going back inside to see some videos about the RAF. I did not do much "real" work today because most of the day was briefing and getting familiar with my placement. The only boring part was a bit of waiting around in the afternoon. I am really looking forward to tomorrow.

Day 2
Arrived today at 8:30 and called down to the XIII Sqn Training Cell to ask Steve to come and pick me up from the guardroom. Once I got down to the Squadron, I was told that I would be doing another "see-off", but this time I would be shadowing one of the engineers, and getting a bit more involved. The whole process took some time because of a leak in the front undercarriage bay of the jet. After we had finished and marshalled the jet off, I went to lunch, which was really good again. After lunch, some of the aircrew came to take me over to their side of the squadron so that I could see what their job entails. I was shown around another jet, but with more emphasis on the cockpit. I sat it the navigator's seat while the Navigator explained all the buttons and screens in the back. Afterwards, we went into the aircrew planning centre, where I saw how the missions were planned, and we managed to find my house on the map that the pilots use. The Navigator had to off at this point, and we were taken to the locker room with another pilot, who showed us all his gear. The full suit is very heavy, weighing up to 15kg. Afterwards, we went and looked through some of the old 13 Sqn photos, before getting a lift to the gate to go home. Another thoroughly enjoyable day.

Day 3
Arrived at 10:30 today because of a science exam at school that I had to go in for. When I got down to the Squadron, I discovered that there was no work I could do that morning because of no jets needing servicing or fixing. Unfortunately, this meant that I had to wait around for most of the morning, but I did sit in on some briefings about refuelling the aircraft. In the afternoon however, Steve arranged for me to go with some of the Armourers to take off a 1500 litre fuel tank from one of the Gr4s because there was a fault in the pylon holding it on, and to find the fault, the tank needed to be removed. Draining fuel out of the plane and the tank took about 1 hour but the tank was off in two minutes. Then, I went round with the armourers to check all the 3kg bombs on the tornados and make sure that they were still fitted on properly. On some of the jets, we had to clean parts of the assembly and fit new bombs where required. Today was not as good as the last two days, but it was still very good.

Day 4
Arrived today at normal time and got a lift down to the Squadron with Lee, one of the other Corporals in the Training Cell. When we got down there, I found out that my friend James, who had a placement with GEF, had joined us for the day because he was not enjoying his placement. While he was taken through the health and safety briefs, I went out to HAS 66, where there was a Tornado that needed its canopy re-attaching, after one of the jacks that held it up had cracked. Work had started the day before, and we were hoping to complete it by the end of the day. First, we had to re-align some bolts that had been put on wrong, and then slowly lift up the canopy, so that it could be fitted properly. To test that it was fitted properly, we had to move the canopy up and down to make sure it worked correctly and would lock. The Sergeant who was in the front seat asked me whether I wanted to go in the back while he moved the canopy up and down. I agreed and was treated to a very loud blast from the horn that signals when the canopy was moving down. We did this a couple of times, before agreeing that the canopy was on properly. After all the work was finished, I asked one of the Corporals whether I could climb down the intake to see the blades of the engine at the back. He allowed me to do this, and it was interesting because I could see how the intake worked, from the inside. We finished closing up the jet, before walking back to the Training Cell, because it was time to go home.

Day 5
I arrived at 8:30 again this morning, and when we arrived at XIII Sqn, we went straight down to HAS 66 and ZD745 (the aircraft we were working on yesterday), and had not a lot to do because the Riggers were closing up on Zone 19 (the area containing the canopy lifting hydraulics, just behind the cockpit), so I just walked around the aircraft taking some pictures. We went back to the Training cell and had lunch. After lunch, I was taken out to see the Tornado that had crashed in the River Humber a few years before. It was totally wrecked and there were only a few recognisable pieces on it, such as the engines and front canopy section. There were also three old Tornado Gr.1s, one from 617 "The Dambusters" Squadron, which had been slowly stripped until only the frames were left. We could not touch the Tornado that went in the Humber because it was radioactive. Then, we had to go back to the guardroom for our end of W/E debrief. I was really sad to go from XIII Squadron, as everyone was really kind and helpful. I hope I can go back next year.