Shaping Air Force for what comes next

As Air Force prepares for an increasingly complex strategic environment, the RAAF School of Technical Training (STT) is helping to build the skilled workforce needed to deliver and sustain future capability. 

The school currently has about 690 initial employment trainees, up from about 500 in 2024, with numbers expected to exceed 700 next year as demand for aviation technical skills continues to grow. 

“Army is getting a new helicopter, Navy is getting some additional helicopters, Air Force is expanding its fleet of C-130Js and we’re introducing new capabilities like the Peregrine,” CO WGCDR Richard Poole said. 

“There’s significant demand for aviation technical skills in the organisation and we’re feeding that growth through here.” 

As new and increasingly sophisticated capabilities are introduced across the ADF, developing the people able to operate, maintain and sustain them is critical to turning investment in technology into operational capability. 

It is a challenge WGCDR Poole understands from a career spanning both operational aircraft maintenance and the development of future capability.

After joining Air Force in 1993 and completing an aeronautical engineering degree at ADFA, he worked across platforms including the F-111, Hawk, F-35A Lightning II and KC-30A multi-role tanker transport. 

More recently, his career has included capability development and force integration, including work involving uncrewed systems and considering what Air Force could require into the 2030s and 2040s. 

That experience provides a strong connection between innovation, future capability and the technical workforce now being developed at Wagga.

But WGCDR Poole believes the school’s contribution extends beyond the technicians who graduate from its courses. 

One of his priorities during his two-year command is highlighting the development of the corporals and SNCOs who train and mentor them. 

“The exposure they get to practical leadership in looking after the trainees here is an excellent foundation for going back and being one of the senior corporals in an operational unit,” he said. 

His current posting also marks a return to familiar ground. WGCDR Poole previously served at Wagga in 2006 as an instructor on the engineer basic course and recalled thinking then that commanding the school was a role he would one day like to undertake. 

Prophetically, he returned as CO in November 2025 and remains just as enthusiastic about the integral role the school, Air Force’s largest unit, plays in safeguarding Australia’s interests.

“Here, we’re training the next generation of Air Force technical capability and setting our young engineers on the right path, hopefully, for a long career in Defence – working on aircraft, keeping our air crews safe and helping deliver our operational mission,” he said.