In some ways university is better the second time round, says Dryburgh “The first time I was a student I was 17 Now, you have a different perspective At 17 you don’t really know what you want to do. It’s much easier to study when you’re interested.”Wing Commander Sean Ellis, a 37-year-old engineering officer with a Harrier squadron, joined up when he was 16 so this is his first chance at higher education He says he is a product of the RAF and its traditional ways. Even after two months I can go back and be more useful.”The three of them – a fourth will join in January – have found it hard work, but enjoyable and no more arduous than normal military life. They have already taken civilian counterparts up to RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland to have a look at the sort of thing they get up to. And his study of the business world is already helping put his own experience into context: “On a personal front it gives you the tools to operate effectively. It’s more important that senior officers can sit round a board table and talk the same language.”His colleague at Henley, Wing Commander Dougie Dryburgh, a 37-year-old RAF administrator, says the arrival of the fliers has generated a bit of mystique on the course.

“As a senior manager in the RAF it’s not that dissimilar to being a manager in any other non-profit making organisation: there are issues of people management, financial management and so on,” he says “We’re all run by money these days. The £25,000 courses are also compressed from a year and a half to just 13 months.Wrenn is now considering a career in higher administration. The test for us is to ensure that when they graduate we then employ them in areas where they use these skills straight away. Interest in it is very high.”The courses are to some extent tailored to the RAF’s needs, with project work relating to current MOD initiatives. We’re prepared to think outside the box and look at different options It’s very exciting We’re not too sure how it’s going to be received. We have decided to find a small number of individuals, probably four or five a year to go off on relevant courses at university to give them these skills instead of going to the academy.”For Hilling, this experiment is a sign that the RAF is changing “We take more free thinkers these days.

“We do need people who understand up-to-the-minute business procedures. There’s a strong focus on operational warfare,” says Air Commodore Hilling.But this, he suggests, may not produce enough expertise in the business of management itself: the ability to manage big budgets and large, time-consuming projects such as the attempt to replace ageing Tornado aircraft with the multi-billion pound Typhoon project. They had the choice of furthering their engineering skills taking a management course – the option they preferred.Air commodore Peter Hilling, who is in charge of the RAF’s leadership programmes, explains that, while the standard defence academy route is still the best choice for most aspiring administrators, the RAF also want higher management skills from the world of business and public administration and to offer career flexibility of a sort that may in the past have been missing, and hopes to retain more senior officers as a result.”The course at the defence school is very much a course in teaching the guys about working in joint operations and dealing with the other services – preparing for operational theatres such as we have experienced in Iraq. They then had a choice: continue on the normal route, dominated by military planning; or take an alternative degree at Henley, Ashridge, Warwick, Bath or Imperial College London. So this term finds him not in a cockpit but in the computer rooms and coffee bars of the Henley Management College along with two airforce colleagues, studying for a Masters in Business Administration.They had to fight hard to get there, coming near the top in fierce competition for places at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, with more than 600 applications for 72 places. Why, in particular, would he rub shoulders with civvy street students when the alternative is a place at the prestigious Shrivenham armed forces staff college which, with its renowned battlefield expertise, is regarded as the natural route to advancement in the Ministry of Defence?
At the age of 36, Squadron Leader Wrenn has taken something of a risk by taking part in a brand new Royal Air Force scheme to send a handful of recruits to university instead of the official defence academy. Why would an RAF helicopter pilot with 18 years experience of flying search and rescue missions want to spend 13 months with the business wonks? They say the boardroom is a battlefield, but it hardly compares with Bosnia or Northern Ireland, the sort of place where John Wrenn has been plying his trade since a teenager.

And in comparison with other schools it seems good value for money, not to say cheap, and charges only €18,000 in comparison with the £18,500 asked by Bath, with which it competes In the current climate, this could be a key factor.. According to Colette Knowles, the marketing manager at the business school, the learning business is now so competitive that MBA courses have taken on some of the characteristics normally associated with a fast-moving consumer durable, such as washing powder. There has been a substantial investment in the new department, with some 25 new academic appointments in the past 18 months.Certainly, the aggressive re-branding campaign that has accompanied the merger, with its “Made in Durham” catchline, is suggesting practicality rather than pie charts. Jacqueline feels her course had many strengths on the analytical side.