Meet Sarah, one of our fantastic members at Anglian Flight Centres.
When and why did you first get into flying?
I turned 60 last year and decided it was probably very necessary to start ticking a few things off my ‘bucket’ list, one of which was to take a flying experience. At the airfield and chatting with an instructor prior to the flight experience, they jokingly warned ‘watch out or you might get hooked’. Clearly I didn’t watch out enough (!) and here I am a year later having gained my PPL and absolutely loving being in the air. I am now known to family as The Flying Granny :). Obviously Captain or Ma’am would be better but hey!
Sum up your experience of getting your PPL in 3 words
(Sorry, phrases) – Hard work, fun (mostly!), huge sense of achievement. I’d also like to add that the entire team at Earls Colne made the whole journey thoroughly enjoyable. Everyone is welcoming and friendly and nothing was too much trouble. My flight instructor, Darren, was amazing and even the flying skills test with Nigel wasn’t too terrifying in the end (at least not for me)!
Tell us a bit about your experience with formation flying.
Earls Colne offers a range of flight experiences and one of these is to try out a spot of formation flying. It proved to be extremely difficult to do well and credit to those pilots who make it seem effortless. It requires huge levels of concentration to keep in position and a great level of satisfaction when you can get the plane where it needs to be, even if only temporarily. Also terrific fun but as a novice formation pilot the experience tells me, unless you really, really know what you’re doing, DO NOT EVER attempt this without an instructor.
What are your future goals for aviation?
I’d like to obtain my night rating and instrument rating. I also fancy giving aerobatics a go at some stage but mainly I’d like to continue to enjoy flying for as long as I can.
Tempted to give flying a go? Get in touch on enquiries@flyafc.co.uk.