Defence, aerospace and security giant BAE Systems is one of Kent’s biggest employers and is expanding its workforce by up to 25%.

Classed as a Ministry of Defence site, a lot of what it does is Top Secret and firmly behind closed doors. Reporter Joe Crossley was allowed inside.

Back at the start of June, KentOnline broke the news BAE Systems had 500 jobs up for grabs over the next five years with 200 roles being available from September.

Including its site in Rochester, the company is a true global giant with more than 90,500 employees across more than 40 countries.

The British branch is a major supplier of military hardware to the UK Ministry of Defence and is classed as a MoD site which means a lot of what it does is Top Secret.

The technology being developed there is for the next generation of civilian and fighter aircraft.

Despite currently employing 1,500 workers in Rochester and having employed thousands more down the decades, there is a definite sense of mystery surrounding the site, which first opened in 1909.

Up first on my tour was the shop floor where experts produce a range of products for their civilian aviation customers, including Boeing and Airbus, as well as military hardware for the RAF.

I was handed a red coat and safety goggles so I would be safe and to mark me out from the army of technicians in their white coats in case I fancied doing a runner with the precious technology.

This area was incredibly well-lit and seemed to almost glisten with every surface being immaculately clean.

Around 230 technicians work here producing heads-up displays (HUD), active interceptors – which are sticks used by pilots to control their aircraft – as well as helmet-mounted displays.

These state-of-the-art technologies are used in Eurofighter Typhoons – aircraft used across NATO to give pilots an edge.

It is in use almost 24/7 with the occasional Sunday shift getting to finish early, which means products like the LiteHUD® go from development to production in under four years, which I was told was a pretty quick turnaround.

The Colour Striker® II Demonstrator helmet is one of the new products being worked on. It’s the next generation of fighter aircraft helmets and will be in production next year.

As this part of the tour ended, I was then taken to the Faraday testing centre which does what it says on the tin – tests the products before they go into production.

There are two key measures on which the products are tested, whether they can live with the environment around them and their electromagnetic capability (EMC).

“The Rochester site is a massive facility and from what I was shown it was simply mesmerizing.”

Environmental tests include subjecting the products to extreme temperatures, which go as low as -60 degrees to up to 140 degrees, and vibrations that copy the effects of gunfire, turbulence, or the effects of tarmac.

Meanwhile, the EMC of the hardware is measured on how it reacts and affects other electrical devices to ensure when in the air the products will continue to work despite electrical interference.

I was then ferried to the flight simulators. I was gobsmacked at the technology on display in what looked like a command centre with the cockpit in the middle of the room facing a large screen.

These simulators are hyper-realistic so the hardware produced on the shop floor and tested in the Faraday Centre can be seen in action which gives customers an accurate representation of how they will perform in the real world.

This meant ‘flying’ the aircraft would be like flying it in real life and not like a video game where the controls are dumbed down to make gameplay more enjoyable.

The first simulator showcased the Lite-HUD and the Striker® I helmet which work in conjunction. When looking straight the display will come from the HUD but when looking around the plane the helmet display will take over giving the pilot 360-degree vision.

This is pretty essential for a pilot in a Typhoon which can reach speeds up to 1,380mph.

These displays are designed to give fighter pilots an advantage in combat and mean they do not have to keep looking down at their console to see important information such as where the enemy is and the speed and altitude of the plane.

I would be lying if I said this was not the most exciting part of the tour – you don’t often get to fly a fighter jet even if it is a simulator.

So I jumped into the cockpit and place the helmet on my head. Usually, the head of the pilot is scanned so the helmet fits snugly and when pushed back brings up a projected display.

When I did push the helmet back the array of lights came on and I was ready for take off.

Despite my optimism, I quickly found out why pilots need years of training before they are allowed in sophisticated, multi-million-pound machines of war, as I struggled to make it off the runway.

Once in the air, the steering was incredibly sensitive as it was using the active interceptor stick which is now standard in the US-made F-35 fighter jets as well as Typhoons.

While to me the stick was so sensitive that I could hardly make a simple altercation to the flight path of the jet, to a highly-trained pilot it gives them greater control and maneuverability as well as easing their workload.

As I tore through the ‘sky’ above Wales, after taking off from RAF Valley, I realised how much concentration it takes to ‘fly’ a jet fighter and this was without the stress of making sure I had enough fuel to get back to base or even worse someone shooting at me.

Then came the landing, where I managed to crash the state-of-the-art fighter jet, ‘costing’ the British taxpayer millions of pounds.

Despite my failings as a RAF fighter pilot, the BAE staff allowed me to try out the commercial flight cockpit which used a HUD without the helmet.

It is installed into the pilot's line of sight and acts in the same way as the helmet.

This was a much smoother ride this time as I had a co-pilot guiding me through the whole process, and more importantly, had the controls to pull me in the right direction.

Because the landscape we were flying over was 3D digitally rendered it was incredibly realistic and I even spotted my own house in Sittingbourne after some sightseeing over central London.

As we flew adjacent to the A2 we finally reached Manston Airport where we would be landing, which gave me a chance to redeem myself after my last mishap.

But the second attempt was only marginally better with fire coming from all sides as I grinded the plane to a halt – those poor passengers.

When they start, the new employees will take designs from development on the shop floor where they will be put through their paces in the Faraday test centre to ensure they are safe to use, and then finally applied to real-world situations in the flight simulators.

The Rochester site is a massive facility with plenty more which I was not allowed to see. However, from what I was shown the visit was simply mesmerizing.

I just hope no one looks into two plane crashes that suspiciously happened within minutes of each other…