Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology

So

Hamilton-based NZ Aero will work with the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology today and that will allow students to learn alongside a working aircraft production line.

Now, NZ Aero is most well known as the builder of the CT4 Air Trainer, which has trained generations of Air Force pilots, including our own RNZEF pilots, before its retirement.

So NZ Aero Chief Executive Stephen Burrows says New Zealand will need about 4,500 aviation engineers by 2034.

Amy grew up on a farm in Whangapoa, where she took to the kitchen from a young age, cooking for the family while her parents worked long hours on the farm.

After a year at Nelson Polytechnic and another at AUT, she headed to Australia looking for experience and found herself cooking every day for crews of 30 on pearling boats off the remote Montebello Islands, 120 nautical miles from Western Australia.

With supplies arriving by seaplane once a week, feeding a crew meant serious planning, organisation and resourcefulness.

It was an unlikely training ground for what would come next.