[Ally]

Has anyone met or flown with a celebrity who is also a pilot...whether in general aviation or commercial?


During the time when I used to visit Cranfield in the 1970's & 80's, I was fortunate to meet a few celebrities who flew.

One of the nicest people was Michael Crawford who filmed an episode of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em at Rogers Aviation. He was being taught to fly by the late Bob Walker, the then head instructor. It was brilliant to watch all the filming being done and afterwards Michael decided to get his licence for real, so Bob got him through his lessons and exams. The planes used were C172 G-BEZO and C152 G-BFRV. Bob always had a tradition of eating Polo mints when flying, so Michael had that included in many of the scenes for the TV series episode.

I also met Bryan Marshall & Pamela Salem who starred in the TV series Buccaneer that was also filmed at Cranfield. Although they weren't actual pilots themselves, they were really decent people to be around, not pretentious at all and were happy to show us around G-BRAC, the Britannia being used at the time.

Another flying celebrity that I have had great pleasure in meeting was Noel Edmonds at a variety of airshows and events, really lovely man, very genuine and an absolute gentleman.

Does anyone else have any memories of encounters with flying celebrities?