I was born in Kowloon, Hong Kong. My maternal Granddad had been a bomber pilot with the RAF in WW2, having started out as a navigator.

After the war had ended, Granddad left the RAF and went to Hong Kong, taking my young Mum and Granny with him; he went out there to become SATCO at Kai Tak, from Autumn 1947 until his retirement in November 1963. He was also an air accident investigator, and was involved in investigating the accident to “Miss Macao”, a Cathay Pacific Catalina whose hijacking and subsequent crash into the Pearl River Delta was the first known act of air piracy in South-East Asia; some accounts have claimed that it was the first known act of air piracy in commercial aviation history, although some have disputed that claim. I grew up with airliners flying past our block of flats every few minutes as they took off from, or made their approach to, Kai Tak; as a result of this, my first word was “feigei” - Cantonese word for aeroplane. When I started at primary school, the airliners would stream low and relatively slow over my school, making playtime a plane-spotter’s paradise. As a family, we were fortunate enough to travel a lot during the first 8 years of my life. My sixth birthday present was a trial lesson in a Beechcraft Sundowner, from Kai Tak, with a Chinese flying instructor showing me the ropes and my Mum and Auntie sat screaming in the back!

We moved to the UK in October 1981 where we lived with my Grandparents. I’d often get Granddad to talk about aeroplanes. He told me nothing about his wartime experiences; he told me nothing about his personal experiences of the accidents that he investigated. However, he was always keen to talk about how flying was fun, and he did talk about air accident investigations from elsewhere, especially the saga of the D.H. 106 De Havilland Comet 1. It was perhaps inevitable that I fly myself, and am lucky enough to do so for a living. In 1999, I passed the U.K. Armed Forces’ pilot aptitude tests at R.A.F. Cranwell, and then – by a miracle – passed the Royal Navy’s Admiralty Interview Board at H.M.S. Sultan in Gosport; this is the Senior Service’s officer selection procedure. I hoped to fly Sea Harriers for the Royal Navy, but a cruel twist of fate conspired against me on that one; as a result, I found myself entering frozen ATPL training at the very end of 1999, and I found that my classmates and I were guinea pigs for the new J.A.A. A.T.P.L theory exams, unfortunately.The early hours of September 1st 2001 saw me walk out of a Tristar simulator with my brand new C.R.M. certificate in my hands. 10 days later, the world was turned upside down by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and what became the worst downturn in civil aviation history up to that point then ensued.

A few months later, I started my flying instructor course at Manston, and found myself a full-time instructor post within a few months of qualifying. 2 years later, I discovered that most of my contemporaries at flight school hadn’t flown since they’d graduated, although most of them did fall on their feet once the post-9/11 downturn picked up.

After 3.5 years of full-time instructing, I found myself starting a Jetstream 41 type rating course with Eastern Airways.

A year later, I found myself in Basle/Bâle, starting my type rating for the mighty SAAB 2000. I spent 13 years flying this fantastic aeroplane on scheduled, charter, wet lease/ACMI and Oil and Gas Producers contractual routes; work took me all around the UK, Western Europe, Scandinavia, and the Northern Mediterranean. I never stopped my GA activities, continuing to instruct, and I became an examiner in October 2010; I’m now on the list for the next CAA/LAA Light Aircraft Test Pilot course, whenever that will be. On top of that, I’ve been asked to attend the HCAP and CAA Pilot Peer Supporter course, which will then allow me to be the first port of call for pilots with mental health issues.

Like so many others, I’ve found myself laid off thanks to Covid, with my last day at Eastern (after 7 months of furlough) coming in November 2020. Job hunting awaits!