FOUR years after joining the Leonardo graduate scheme in Yeovil, Kealey Judd’s office is now over 2,000 feet in the sky, with stunning views that stretch for miles across the Somerset landscape and beyond.

However, when she first joined her graduate scheme, she had no idea she would end up flying every day in the helicopters she saw taking off through the windows when she worked in the customer support department.

Kealey, 27, said: “I joined the Leonardo customer support graduate scheme in 2018, and I was attracted to the company by the fact that it is the UK’s only helicopter manufacturer.

“I completed the scheme in 2020 and moved into a role in repair design. During my graduate scheme, I had the opportunity to spend a month in the Flight Test Department, and loved it. So when an opportunity came up as a Flight Test Engineer, I went for it.

“You get to work on the entire aircraft and there are not many roles where you work with every system. Then there is the fact that you get to fly.

"You don’t just sit in an office every day, you fly in a helicopter and you can look out over the landscape thousands of feet in the air. That is your office for the day.”

In her daily role, Kealey is responsible for writing flight test instructions, as well as monitoring the performance of systems in a live flight setting to see how they operate.