Having served as a fast jet pilot in the Royal Air Force for 17 years I decided it was time to leave for pastures new, but I wasn’t quite ready to let go completely, so I joined the Air Experienced Flight at MoD Boscombe Down as a Volunteer Reservist. I now fly the Tutor aircraft and take cadets, aged between 13 and 18, on a flying experience that they will hopefully never forget!

It was on a full flying day that I had the pleasure of flying with a young girl called Emily. We fly four cadets in the morning and four in the afternoon and, as you can imagine, by the eighth trip of the day you’re feeling slightly less inspiring and motivated than you were on the first. This is when I saw Emily for the first time. She was walking out to the aircraft with her shoulders stooped and a slightly surly look on her face. I introduced myself and told her what I had planned for the next exciting 30 minutes flying experience. I was met with a series of grunts that I could only translate as teenage speak for “how wonderful – that sounds like great fun!” It transpired that this was Emily’s first flight in any aircraft and when I asked her if she was excited I was simply met by another series of grunts!

We took to the skies. It was a beautiful day with a pure blue sky interspersed with a few white fluffy clouds, the sort of day that is a pilots’ dream. I started off by demonstrating the basic controls, left, right, up and down…”you have control Emily” I said. “Hmph hmph hmph, ma’am!” I heard in response. Emily seemed strangely relaxed though and flew the aircraft really well. I decided to challenge her a little more. I demonstrated how to turn the aircraft – first simple 30 degree angle of bank turns. These provided no problem to her so I threw down the gauntlet with 60 degree turns. Now these are more challenging to any pilot because if you don’t raise the nose and add power you start a rather ominous spiral descent. Unperturbed, Emily manoeuvred the aircraft as if she had been behind the controls all of her life.

With the cotton wool clouds calling we decided to have a little fun, diving through gaps and gullies in the clouds as if we were taking on an undiscovered landscape, designed by the Gods. Great fun, that even the most surly of teenagers could not help but enjoy….but still not even a smile from my silent co-pilot!