I first met Paul when we both spent August 1965 undertaking a Flying Scholarship PPL course with Hampshire Aero Club at Eastleigh/Southampton aerodrome. During that time we had our first 'adventure' when a car in stationery traffic that we were overtaking on Paul's motorcycle with me riding pillion decided to pull out whilst attempting to enter an adjacent side road ...... only to collide with us! Fortunately we were not travelling at any speed so survived with just a scratch or two.

We then met again the following Autumn as part of the late 1966 intake at the College of Air Training, Hamble. The flying training involved one hundred hours basic training on the fully aerobatic Chipmunk followed by cross-country and instrument flying on the Cherokee and finally twin-engine flying leading to a commercial licence and instrument rating. This we undertook with Oxford Air Training School as Hamble was short of twin engine aircraft availability at that time, and was in the process of retiring its Apache fleet for new Beech Barons.

Those days were very much less monitored than things would be today - giving opportunities for various 'escapades' when undertaking solo or dual (flying with a colleague) exercises. Paul was a leading exponent starting with 'mock dogfights' in Chipmunks over the Isle of Wight - the area where we undertook much of our initial flying. Following our one hundred hours basic training and graduation on to the Cherokee, we would sometimes undertake solo cross-country navigation exercises. During that period I well remember a number of us arranging routes (which had to be approved by our instructors) such that we 'secretly' met at Ipswich, i.e. each instructor was not aware that our planned routes converged. Our intention was then to fly out to radio station Radio Caroline -  a pirate radio station operating just outside the then twelve mile territorial limit.

We were able to tune a radio into the station and when the DJ reported on the air that the ship was under attack by a number of low flying aircraft we decide it was time to leave the area. So that we didn't all arrive back at Hamble at the same time and create suspicion most took separate routes, but Paul and I flew in a loose formation. En route he came over the radio to me and said "now watch this" ..... and proceeded to barrel roll his technically non-aerobatic Cherokee! 

A final story from those days relates to our time at Oxford for the final part of our flying training. He was teamed up with another colleague and they undertook their instrument rating examination with a CAA examiner consecutively late one afternoon whilst their instructor was released for the rest of the day. Apparently he greeted them the following morning with "I understand that yesterday there were two miracles - you both passed" 

Although subsequently our commercial aviation careers over the years took different paths, we remained friends and would catch up from time to time. I well remember visiting Paul in Bahrein in his Gulf Air days followed by the Gatwick area when he returned to the UK with Dan Air. He also visited me when I lived in the Paris area in the early 200s and subsequently the south of France where I took him for a flight from Cannes in a Cessna 182 I had use of there. I also flew during more recent years with him in his light aircraft - initially from a farmer's field in true Paul style!

I will miss him

Malcolm Robertson