“Your first flight in a fighter jet never leaves you,” says Jen Richley, who joined Eurofighter in October 2023 on a three-year secondment, becoming operational factors manager in front-end development. “It’s exciting and fun, but a lot of training has led you to that point.”
Growing up close to Farnborough in the UK, which is home to the world-famous Air Show , and with two parents in the aerospace industry there was perhaps never much doubt about Jen’s career path.
She joined the RAF in 2001, aged 19, spending 11 years flying the Tornado F3, including three frontline tours.
Passionate about sharing her love for aerospace, she now speaks to young people about pursuing similar careers, so she has often recalled that first flight.
“I vividly remember lining up on the end of the runway. The throttle went up and the brakes released and I started accelerating. It’s exciting and momentous every time, and then you’re airborne and straight into work because you have a job to do. "
“Monday morning is just Monday morning. But I’ve never had a day where I didn’t want to go to work.”
Leaving the RAF in 2012, she did an Open University degree in economics and mathematical sciences while working for DSTL on projects around unmanned systems and swarming. She next became electronic warfare officer at Cobham Aviation Services, flying Falcon 20 and providing operational readiness training for UK, NATO and international customers, with a focus on jamming, comms jamming and radar.
“I’ve been lucky to have an amazing career that’s taken me all over the world,” says the 42-year-old. She’s had four tours to the Falkland Islands as well as work in the US, Finland, Denmark, Lithuania, Cyprus, Oman. A highlight was going to Lithuania in 2004. “It was with the NATO Baltic air policing operation,” she says. “I was on my first operational tour, and it was a really terrific opportunity to go and see somewhere different and to be on the NATO frontline.”
Jen joined BAE Systems in 2019, teaching in the Typhoon simulator at RAF Coningsby and latterly as an aircrew advisor specialising in fast jet mission planning.
It’s a career that has neatly come full circle, back to one of the people who has been her inspiration. “My dad is a private pilot and aeronautical engineer,” Jen says. “He worked on Typhoon in the early days of wind tunnel models in the 1980s, so he sparked my love of aviation. He’s always been an excellent sounding board, full of clever, considered opinions so always enjoyed being able to discuss my work with him. My mum works in defence and aerospace, too, on air weapons – it’s great to have your parents as an inspiration.”
Her latest role as one of two operational factors managers (the other being her husband), is described broadly by Jen as being “the voice of the operator across the business”. She works on the development of the aircraft and future requirements that will map out how Typhoon is developed all the way to 2060.
She is equally as enthusiastic about the impact she can have on the aircraft, providing that end-user focus, as she is about the role enabling her to give her three children the travel opportunities she had.
“Eurofighter GmbH is the company that makes Typhoon happen so it’s great to be a part of the organisation that oversees everything, rather than small parts of it,” she says. “This is where you see everything and that’s interesting to me. This week I’ve been involved in discussions with pilots from Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, but sometimes I spend time with the marketing team, and I’ve also been doing some workshops as part of the mentoring scheme at Eurofighter.”
The world has changed massively in 20 years, so to think how the world of air operations might change next year and over the next 20 years, makes this a really exciting space to work in
It's a fantastic journey that perhaps took flight as a regular visitor to Farnborough Air Show as a child, and Jen is inspired by the chance to impact future generations.
“The world has changed massively in 20 years, so to think how the world of air operations might change next year and over the next 20 years, makes this a really exciting space to work in,” she says.