Sensible
6th Feb 2004, 05:28
Naples now has world wide fame - it has earned a mention in the Daily Telegraph:
http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=%2Farts%2F2004%2F02%2F05%2Fftfly05.xml&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=70933
Quote :
The ultimate boy's toy takes off
(Filed: 05/02/2004)
Forget sports cars and iPods; growing numbers of young professionals want to get hold of a pilot's licence. Helen Kirwan-Taylor reports
Clearly, I've been moving in the wrong circles. I've just discovered that the hottest lunch invitation is not to the the Fat Duck or the Wolseley, but to Le Touquet in France. The magic words are: "Meet me at Biggin Hill at 9am, and bring your passport."
More than 16,000 Britons now hold a private pilot's licence. This group has long included CEOs and pop stars. Paul McCartney has had four lessons recently – "He always has his head in a flying book in his spare time," said a friend this week.
But a new group of enthusiasts is emerging. Airport delays and security fears have made travellers look less fondly on the big commercial airlines, which might help to explain why more people – from young professionals looking for an antidote to office stress to pensioners in search of a new hobby – are learning to fly.
According to Nick Bloom, deputy editor of Pilot magazine and a former British aerobatic champion, flying enthusiasts fall into two distinct groups: those, like him, who grew up reading Biggles and dreamily assembling model aircraft; and practically minded City types who are looking for the ultimate boy's toy. "My generation grew up with aeroplanes," says Bloom. "We all knew about Lindbergh . My mother wanted to be an aviatrix. We thought flying was so glamorous and exciting. But a large percentage of those now learning to fly are doing it for convenience. They think a plane is just a useful tool to help get them from A to B. Of course, some think they're going to impress their secretaries by taking them to Le Touquet for lunch. They'll probably just make them sick."
But it seems that plenty of new pilots are also taking up flying for the wow-factor. One described the experience to me as being "as exciting as sex, but safer". "I've met wild geese on my flights and got so close to cranes I could almost touch them," says London banker Peter Ferres. "Flying is an out-of-this-world experience. You're really in the third dimension." Flying also keeps Ferres's stress levels down. "It teaches you to manage anxiety," he says, "and it makes you disciplined."
Charles Nicholls, CEO of a software company, was "completely blown away" by the excitement of his first flying lesson. "I think the reason so many professionals are attracted to flying is that it makes you focus," he says. "You can't think of anything else apart from the task at hand.
"Pilots talk about the `zone': that exciting moment when all attention is on one task. And it's exhilarating to be sharing airspace with the big jets and to follow a Boeing 737 on the instrument landing system."
Young male professionals with cash to spare used to be satisfied with driving fast cars, but that was all about speed. Flying, crucially, is about control. "It really brings out the traits of leadership," says Nicholls. "It's about mastering a complex skill and controlling a machine where there is always a real element of danger."
Not all wannabe pilots are so sensible: many seem to approach flying schools with an image of Tom Cruise in Top Gun fixed firmly in their minds. Tim Orchard, managing director of the British Airways Flying Club at Wycombe and a seasoned BA pilot, meets his fair share of speed maniacs.
"We do a briefing first in which we explain how to fly a plane," he says. "The women listen to the briefing and do exactly what they're told. The men – without exception – think they can do it better and faster than we tell them to. They can't resist pushing and pulling on the controls of the flight simulator. When we read the group their results after the simulation, is it always the women who score the highest."
British-born Nicola Gentil and her husband, Richard, run the Naples Air Centre, a flying school in Florida which, at the moment, is packed with British men and women of all ages who are taking advantage of the weak dollar: a typical flying lesson costs around $60 an hour in the States compared with £100 in Britain. Their students include a 65-year-old grandmother who was given flying lessons as a Christmas present and was instantly hooked. "Learning to fly takes at least 45 hours," says Nicola. Everyone arrives thinking they can do it in two weeks. What they don't realise is that it's the studying that takes up the hours, not the actual flying. There are seven written exams."
"It's the hardest thing I've ever done," says British banker Andrew Cornthwaite who, with his brother Nick, spent the New Year period getting his final pilot's qualifications at Naples Air Centre . Cornthwaite started flying by accident. "I heard my colleagues talking about it and I thought it sounded like fun," he says. "When I came back to the office and said I was now a pilot, everyone looked astonished."
Cornthwaite is now studying magazine adverts in search of a second-hand plane. "Flying is a challenge against yourself," he says. "The liberation is exhilarating. You see so many bankers buying fast cars to drive the six-mile stretch from Chelsea to Canary Wharf. I'm flying 130 miles an hour and I'm in complete control." But the habit does not come with his wife's blessing. "She refuses to fly with me," he says.
As hobbies go, flying doesn't come cheap, but it could be worse. Qualifying for an instrument flying licence costs about £5,000. Once airborne, new pilots can expect to spend, on average, a further £2,000 a year. But this is one hobby where you really have to put the hours in.
"Flying is a skill: it's a wonderful, liberating experience, but don't ask me to travel with anyone who does it for fun," says Rob Hersov, head of Net Jet, a company that runs fleets of small jets with professional pilots for an annual subscription fee. Though many of Hersov's friends, such as restaurateur Mogens Tholstrup, fly their own planes, he urges caution. "No one wants to be stopped and searched at Heathrow," he says, "but pilots should be professionals who fly all day, every day."
Flying lessons are commonly given as presents for St Valentine's Day and Christmas: but of those who make it to the airfield to take their first lessons, only two per cent will go on to become qualified pilots.
"Flying is about being cool in the face of crisis," says Tim Orchard. "You can't be a coward and fly, but then again, you can't be a grown-up either."
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004. Terms & Conditions of reading.
Commercial information. Privacy Policy.
http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=%2Farts%2F2004%2F02%2F05%2Fftfly05.xml&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=70933
Quote :
The ultimate boy's toy takes off
(Filed: 05/02/2004)
Forget sports cars and iPods; growing numbers of young professionals want to get hold of a pilot's licence. Helen Kirwan-Taylor reports
Clearly, I've been moving in the wrong circles. I've just discovered that the hottest lunch invitation is not to the the Fat Duck or the Wolseley, but to Le Touquet in France. The magic words are: "Meet me at Biggin Hill at 9am, and bring your passport."
More than 16,000 Britons now hold a private pilot's licence. This group has long included CEOs and pop stars. Paul McCartney has had four lessons recently – "He always has his head in a flying book in his spare time," said a friend this week.
But a new group of enthusiasts is emerging. Airport delays and security fears have made travellers look less fondly on the big commercial airlines, which might help to explain why more people – from young professionals looking for an antidote to office stress to pensioners in search of a new hobby – are learning to fly.
According to Nick Bloom, deputy editor of Pilot magazine and a former British aerobatic champion, flying enthusiasts fall into two distinct groups: those, like him, who grew up reading Biggles and dreamily assembling model aircraft; and practically minded City types who are looking for the ultimate boy's toy. "My generation grew up with aeroplanes," says Bloom. "We all knew about Lindbergh . My mother wanted to be an aviatrix. We thought flying was so glamorous and exciting. But a large percentage of those now learning to fly are doing it for convenience. They think a plane is just a useful tool to help get them from A to B. Of course, some think they're going to impress their secretaries by taking them to Le Touquet for lunch. They'll probably just make them sick."
But it seems that plenty of new pilots are also taking up flying for the wow-factor. One described the experience to me as being "as exciting as sex, but safer". "I've met wild geese on my flights and got so close to cranes I could almost touch them," says London banker Peter Ferres. "Flying is an out-of-this-world experience. You're really in the third dimension." Flying also keeps Ferres's stress levels down. "It teaches you to manage anxiety," he says, "and it makes you disciplined."
Charles Nicholls, CEO of a software company, was "completely blown away" by the excitement of his first flying lesson. "I think the reason so many professionals are attracted to flying is that it makes you focus," he says. "You can't think of anything else apart from the task at hand.
"Pilots talk about the `zone': that exciting moment when all attention is on one task. And it's exhilarating to be sharing airspace with the big jets and to follow a Boeing 737 on the instrument landing system."
Young male professionals with cash to spare used to be satisfied with driving fast cars, but that was all about speed. Flying, crucially, is about control. "It really brings out the traits of leadership," says Nicholls. "It's about mastering a complex skill and controlling a machine where there is always a real element of danger."
Not all wannabe pilots are so sensible: many seem to approach flying schools with an image of Tom Cruise in Top Gun fixed firmly in their minds. Tim Orchard, managing director of the British Airways Flying Club at Wycombe and a seasoned BA pilot, meets his fair share of speed maniacs.
"We do a briefing first in which we explain how to fly a plane," he says. "The women listen to the briefing and do exactly what they're told. The men – without exception – think they can do it better and faster than we tell them to. They can't resist pushing and pulling on the controls of the flight simulator. When we read the group their results after the simulation, is it always the women who score the highest."
British-born Nicola Gentil and her husband, Richard, run the Naples Air Centre, a flying school in Florida which, at the moment, is packed with British men and women of all ages who are taking advantage of the weak dollar: a typical flying lesson costs around $60 an hour in the States compared with £100 in Britain. Their students include a 65-year-old grandmother who was given flying lessons as a Christmas present and was instantly hooked. "Learning to fly takes at least 45 hours," says Nicola. Everyone arrives thinking they can do it in two weeks. What they don't realise is that it's the studying that takes up the hours, not the actual flying. There are seven written exams."
"It's the hardest thing I've ever done," says British banker Andrew Cornthwaite who, with his brother Nick, spent the New Year period getting his final pilot's qualifications at Naples Air Centre . Cornthwaite started flying by accident. "I heard my colleagues talking about it and I thought it sounded like fun," he says. "When I came back to the office and said I was now a pilot, everyone looked astonished."
Cornthwaite is now studying magazine adverts in search of a second-hand plane. "Flying is a challenge against yourself," he says. "The liberation is exhilarating. You see so many bankers buying fast cars to drive the six-mile stretch from Chelsea to Canary Wharf. I'm flying 130 miles an hour and I'm in complete control." But the habit does not come with his wife's blessing. "She refuses to fly with me," he says.
As hobbies go, flying doesn't come cheap, but it could be worse. Qualifying for an instrument flying licence costs about £5,000. Once airborne, new pilots can expect to spend, on average, a further £2,000 a year. But this is one hobby where you really have to put the hours in.
"Flying is a skill: it's a wonderful, liberating experience, but don't ask me to travel with anyone who does it for fun," says Rob Hersov, head of Net Jet, a company that runs fleets of small jets with professional pilots for an annual subscription fee. Though many of Hersov's friends, such as restaurateur Mogens Tholstrup, fly their own planes, he urges caution. "No one wants to be stopped and searched at Heathrow," he says, "but pilots should be professionals who fly all day, every day."
Flying lessons are commonly given as presents for St Valentine's Day and Christmas: but of those who make it to the airfield to take their first lessons, only two per cent will go on to become qualified pilots.
"Flying is about being cool in the face of crisis," says Tim Orchard. "You can't be a coward and fly, but then again, you can't be a grown-up either."
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004. Terms & Conditions of reading.
Commercial information. Privacy Policy.