'It means we've got a local job guaranteed'

Jack, a 19-year-old apprentice from Preston who has been training at the Warton plant since he was just 16, told the Post that uncertainty over orders meant he and his colleagues had been mulling the possibility that they might have to leave the area and be "temporarily relocated" - perhaps to an RAF base - if work at Warton had dried up.

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"But now we've got job security here...in the local area, with our families around," he said of the Turkey deal.

He added that he was looking forward to seeing "all these hangers in the factory with life [in them] again... filled up with new aircraft."

As a child, Jack had always had fascination with planes, but never dreamt that the chance to work on one like the Typhoon might be on his doorstep.