• Question: When did you learn how to fly a plane?

    Asked by kent520gast to Steve P, Ryan, Kevin B, Henry D on 30 Jun 2025.
    • Photo: Kevin Burke

      Kevin Burke answered on 30 Jun 2025:

      I was always interested in aircraft, so joined the Air Cadets, and at 16 managed to get a Flying Scholarship. This gave me 30 hours of flying in a little Piper Cherokee, during the summer holidays. It was absolutely fantastic. I then finished of at my local flying club (Blackpool Airport), and got a Private Pilots Licence by the age of 17.

    • Photo: Henry Duke

      Henry Duke answered on 30 Jun 2025:

      I had a couple of lessons when I was younger but I have never fully learned to fly a plane

    • Photo: Steve Potterill

      Steve Potterill answered on 30 Jun 2025:

      I learned to fly in the Air Cadets as well. I flew Venture Mk II gliders at RAF Henlow grass airfield – these gliders have small engines for take-off so they don’t need to be towed or winched to take off.
      (It is certainly a strange experience, having climbed to the altitude you want, turning the engine off when you’e in mid-air then levering the propeller out of your line of sight so you can then see where you’re going)!
      I got my gliding licence at the age of 19 just one week before I joined the Royal Air Force. Whilst in the RAF, the only jet aircraft I flew (as a trainee engineer I was passed the controls once the pilot had taken off)) was the Jet Provost.
      It is great fun!

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