It is the job of a group of Aviation Support Category (AVN) trainees to combat the fire, secure the aircraft and rescue and treat the helicopter crew.

It’s a scenario the latest group of trainees have been put through as they come to the completion of their 19 week training course at HMAS Albatross.

The group is in the last stages of training ahead of graduation in early June and were undertaking their final assessments in the search and rescue component of their course.

Aviation Support sailors secure and oversee all aircraft ground handling on flight lines ashore and on the flight and hangar decks of navy's two largest ships, Adelaide and Canberra.

And even though it was a training scenario, the trainees treated the exercise as the real thing.

They gamely battled the fire onboard the mock helicopter, before securing the aircraft and combining to rescue the aircrew.

The trainees then moved to another training scenario, using their new skills to remove three passengers from a crashed car, used to simulate rescuing crews from a downed aircraft.

The AVN category was introduced in 2011 to meet the capability demands of the Canberra Class Amphibious Assault Ship (LHD).

Despite being a physically and mentally challenging role, the category/career path is becoming increasingly popular with females.

In this latest intake of 14, nine of the participants are women and once completed and graduated will take the overall percentage of women in these roles within the navy to 22 per cent.

The training also created a piece of history, for the first time aviation support training has been conducted at sea with the trainees taking to HMAS Adelaide off the east coast of Australia.

The trainees and their instructors spent a week onboard Adelaide for training with an embarked MRH-90 aircraft from Albatross’ 808 Squadron, dubbed ‘Poseidon 29’.

It was also the the first time an all-female team has secured an aircraft on deck in the RAN.

They got to experience the rush of working beneath 14,000 kilograms of hovering helicopter on the deck of a moving warship.

Following a day of flight deck safety briefs, the trainees spent time becoming familiar with lashings and how to secure an aircraft to the deck upon landing.

Much of the week was spent successfully carrying out day and night launches and recoveries of Poseidon 29, conducting vertical replenishment of stores and transferring personnel by winch.

The trainees were also able to observe first-hand night time flying operations by two Black Hawk helicopters from Army’s 6th Aviation Regiment.

HMAS Adelaide is capable of launching six helicopters simultaneously from her flight deck and can carry an additional 12 in her hanger.