A Newmarket-on-Fergus man was among the members of the 74th and 75th Apprentice Classes who qualified as aircraft technicians with the rank of Airman in the Irish Air Corps, on Tuesday last.

Oisin Pender, a past pupil of St Aidan’s National School and St Caimin’s Community School is part of the classes which qualified to become Class 2 Technicians, and graduate with a BEng (Tech) in Military Aviation Technology, as well as having passed the EASA exams as Category B Aircraft Technicians.

The ceremony marked the completion of four years of training, ranging from Military training, to theoretical knowledge training, practical workshop training, and almost 500 hours of ‘on-the-job’ training within operational units where supervised maintenance was performed on the Irish Air Corps fleet.

Irish Air Corps have said the newly qualified technicians will now commence their careers working and undergoing specialised courses on the aircraft and systems within the various units of the Irish Air Corps.

A former member of the Clare minor hurling panel, Pender was the sole Banner representative included in the classes.