Mr Ibbotson, who worked as a gas engineer based in Crowle, is believed to have had extensive experience carrying parachute enthusiasts on flights from private airfields.
Well I have extensive (sort of) experience of jumping out of such aircraft.
We never paid the pilots anything. Maybe a lunch in the pub afterwards. There was a queue of them wanting to do the work. One of them drove 150 miles each way for a weekend's jumping. They fell into two categories. Young guys who wanted the hours as part of building up their experience to apply to an airline. And older/retired guys who did it to keep their hours up at somebody else's expense. I believe glider clubs work the same way with glider tug tow pilots.