11 November, 2019

One of the Riverina’s most iconic tourist drawcards has reached out to TAFE NSW to help give flight – literally - to its fleet of historic aircraft.

Five engineers from the Temora Aviation Museum have recently completed a customised welding short course to build their skills in working on the museum’s nationally renowned collection of ex-military aircraft.

Temora Aviation Museum general manager Peter Harper said the 11-week Statement of Attainment in Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (Basic) had been “hugely valuable” for staff and would ensure more flying hours for the museum’s historic collection of Warbirds.

“Due to the age of the aircraft, we are quite often repairing, rather than replacing, parts,” Mr Harper said. “The course was definitely a skill set we needed and it’s absolutely made a difference.

“Having the course delivered right here in Temora was a huge bonus; if we had to incur the cost of sending staff to Griffith or Wagga, we likely wouldn’t have been able to do it on the same scale.”

TAFE Enterprise offers customised and flexible training to meet specific business needs. TAFE NSW welding teacher Frank Prestia travelled from Wagga Wagga to Temora each Thursday night to teach engineers the hands-on skills of welding.

One of the participants, aircraft maintenance engineer Martin Lancaster, praised the personalised teaching and said his new-found skills would be put to good use.

“We all jumped at the opportunity to do the course and it really gives us another arrow in our quiver,” Mr Lancaster said. “Having that one-on-one teaching was great.”

Mr Prestia, a 10-year industry veteran, said it was “very rewarding” teaching the engineers the job-ready skills to assist them in servicing the much-loved aircraft.

“To be able to teach the high-level skills required to engineers to be able to repair planes like these was very rewarding,” Mr Prestia said.

“The best part for me was being able to assist and adapt their learning to such a specialty area.”

TAFE NSW offers more than 1200 courses, from diplomas to degrees, allowing graduates to upskill in their existing profession or find the job of their dreams.

To find out more about studying at TAFE NSW, phone 13 16 01 or visit www.tafensw.edu.au.

Media contact: Daniel Johns, TAFE NSW Media and Communications – Business Partner, 6938 1441, mobile 0477 722 428.