My adventure towards this dream of flying started a while back. It began in February 2022 when I first joined the ATC (Air training Corp). Back then, cadets were just exiting it’s isolation period after the results of covid and luckily, my invite was accepted. I first had to complete a bunch of things to become a cadet. This involved: marching, things about cadets, and doing activities like air rifle shooting (which were for your entertainment and not mandatory). This eventually led to me becoming a first-class cadet by summer of 2022 after an induction parade. However, at the time flying was rare for the most part due to the restrictions of covid and limited opportunities.

As I progressed through cadets, I learnt many skills and participated in many activies and events such as remembrance parade, Wingfield day and achieving leading class cadet later. This allowed me to eventually achieve the rank of Corporal in April 2024 after previously applying a few months back. Thanks to this, I became a lot more confident and boosted other qualities.

Eventually in September 2024, a flying spot had opened for some people to apply for and soon enough, I got accepted due to my age (they prioritise older cadets who haven’t flown yet). This meant that I would finally get the chance to fly on the 24th of September at RAF Wittering. On the day, we had to go through practice for parachuting, getting in and out of the plane and anything to do with safety as required. Eventually, the clouds had cleared away enough to where it was optimal flying conditions and luckily and I was the first lot of planes to go.

Once we got suited up with parachutes and our flying suits me, and another person from another squadron headed towards the plane which was a Tutor which was a single engine piston aircraft. Whilst moving towards it, I was feeling quite nervous but very excited for the flight to happen. I entered the plane alongside the pilot (who is trained in flying Typhoons as I found out after), and he began the preflight safety checks. He talked me through everything as the on-ground crew readied us. We began to taxi down the runway, unable to contain my excitement as we approached the bottom of the runway completing engine checks once there.

Finally, we were given the green light and off we went. We sped down the runway before taking off into the now blue sky as most clouds had cleared away. We skyrocketed towards 3000 feet where we were then stabilised as he flew us towards a less cloudy area whilst taking in the scenery. Once above a local town which was next to a lake, he handed the controls over to me as the Tutor was dual control. At first, I was very nervous but quickly got the hang of it using the joystick gently to glide past the clouds and around the sky before eventually I gave him back control. After that, I agreed on doing acrobatics and the pilot sped up to 145 knots before doing a loop the loop where the pilot went down until reaching 145 knots and did a loop which was very exciting and thrilling. He next did a barrel roll where he went off to the side and flew upside down for a second before returning us level. He continued this by doing another version of a barrel roll where we flipped upside down for 5 or more seconds which was very cool being able to see the towns below upside down before gravity flung us closer to the earth. He even offered me to pull an acrobatic stunt however I was too nervous to conduct the acrobatics. Finally, we flew back to RAF Wittering before making a clean landing down the runway and taxied back to where we were based which allowed the other 2 cadets from our squadron to get a chance at flying.

Overall, it was an adrenaline rushing experience and one I would love to do again. It was an experience most would be unable to achieve across their cadet experience. It will be an experience I will remember for life.

Article written by Alex, year 12 student