St. Albans
| TOP STORIES |  | | | | | | | FEATURES | | | | | | MAYOR NEWS | | | | BIZARRE LONDON | | | TRAVEL | | | | COMPETITIONS | | |
|
|
|
Grant Shapps airborn today
WELWYN Hatfield MP Grant Shapps will take to the skies above Welwyn Garden City today with one of the Review reporters.
Both Mr Shapps and reporter Alexandra Barham will join scout groups from across Hertfordshire for a lesson in flying light aircraft at Panshangar airfield.
Private pilots and aircraft owners based at the aerodrome in Cole Green will be taking around 58 young people, aged eight to 17, on a 20-minute flight in a light aircraft as part of national Young Aviators Day.
Together with the short flight will be a series of other activities including map reading, an airfield tour, and an aerial treasure hunt.
Organiser Colin Hastings said: "The pilots at Panshanger love flying; it is our passion and we want to encourage future aviators by sharing our flying passion in a hope that some young people will embark either on an aviation career or just for the self-satisfaction of saying "I'm a pilot".
"We want young people to appreciate the passion of the skies."
8:37am Saturday 10th May 2008
Print 
Email this 
CommentPosted by: Bob, St Albans on 12:32pm Sat 10 May 08
Is Ms Barham now Grant Shapps' constituency agent? What's Young Aviators' Day (ages 8-17) to do with the local MP apart from another photo opportunity and favourable publicity in his favourite newspaper?
Is Ms Barham now Grant Shapps' constituency agent? What's Young Aviators' Day (ages 8-17) to do with the local MP apart from another photo opportunity and favourable publicity in his favourite newspaper?
Posted by: Ted Wilkins, WGC on 7:02pm Sat 10 May 08
I know what you mean about politicians but on this occasion you'd be wrong to be cynical.
Grant Shapps was actually involved in the day because he was helping to fly the youngsters (all scouts) as a pilot. A point strangely missing from the story above!
Good on him I say. I assume he doesn't actually need to give up his Saturday, though I think I'm right in saying that his own family popped along to join in the fun too.
I know what you mean about politicians but on this occasion you'd be wrong to be cynical.
Grant Shapps was actually involved in the day because he was helping to fly the youngsters (all scouts) as a pilot. A point strangely missing from the story above!
Good on him I say. I assume he doesn't actually need to give up his Saturday, though I think I'm right in saying that his own family popped along to join in the fun too.
Posted by: Colin Hastings, Panshanger on 9:34am Mon 12 May 08
In all, 11 pilots (including Grant, local Panshanger pilots and pilots / engineers from ThomsonFly at Luton) and 14 ground helpers gave up their time to fly 63 young people and give them an insight into aviation. All volunteers did so at thier own cost. Grant involved his family as did many of the other volunteers as a way of showing aviation can be for all. My wife, son and friends were all ground crew. We view the event as a community event and this is the 3rd year we have operated it. So, in 3 years, we have introduced 167 young people, their parents and group leaders to General Aviaiton. Some of those have already decided to follow a career into aviation wether as a pilot or engineer. We have worked with many other airfields around the UK and created a national event and we estimate that over the weekend, some 700 young people were given a flight in a light aircraft and introduced to aviation as a possible career.
In all, 11 pilots (including Grant, local Panshanger pilots and pilots / engineers from ThomsonFly at Luton) and 14 ground helpers gave up their time to fly 63 young people and give them an insight into aviation. All volunteers did so at thier own cost. Grant involved his family as did many of the other volunteers as a way of showing aviation can be for all. My wife, son and friends were all ground crew. We view the event as a community event and this is the 3rd year we have operated it. So, in 3 years, we have introduced 167 young people, their parents and group leaders to General Aviaiton. Some of those have already decided to follow a career into aviation wether as a pilot or engineer. We have worked with many other airfields around the UK and created a national event and we estimate that over the weekend, some 700 young people were given a flight in a light aircraft and introduced to aviation as a possible career.
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
