6 Issue No. 41 The VE (Victory in Europe) 80th Anniversary (1945 - 2025) flag-jump was done at Hinton Skydiving Centre, Nr Banbury, Northamptonshire. I climbed on board their skydiving aircraft, a PAX750XL, together with an aerial cameraman and exited the aircraft at 12,000 feet. I then carried out a freefall descent down to 5,000 feet and after deploying the main parachute, and checking that it was in good order, I deployed the VE and UK flags. Les Copper VE Day Parachute Flag Jump The aerial cameraman filmed the airshots - YouTube link previously provided - and one of Hinton’s skydiving cameramen took all the still photographs from the ground. The skydive went well with the flags being admired by many on the ground. I have done several flag jumps before and did one some time ago at Dunkeswell which during WWII was a U.S. Naval base flying Liberators in search of German U-Boats. The flags jumped on that one was the UK and the U.S. flags. I sent those images to the Americans who appreciated them. So now onto my after-service episodes. After leaving the RAF Regiment I worked as a skydiving instructor, parachute rigger and later as a pilot. The chap who taught me how to fly was a WWII Battle of Britain Ace called James ‘Ginger’ Lacey. Ginger was also our jump-pilot. During my flying career I worked as a flying instructor on single and multi-engine aircraft, an instrument rated instructor, an aerobatic instructor and taught some foreign air force pilots the art of flinging an aircraft around the sky without getting killed in the process, a CAA Examiner for the issue of the Private Pilot’s Licence, a CAA approved pilot to conduct flight tests for the airworthiness certificate of single and multi-engine aircraft, a BPA (British Parachute Association now referred to a British Skydiving) pilot examiner on single and multi-engine aircraft and the aircraft’s suitability for parachuting, a corporate pilot who flew into Kosovo during the war in an unarmed aircraft to drop people off and finally as an airline pilot from which I have now retired - when you hit 65 you have to retire from airline flying, there is no choice. I was even involved years ago in flying the Powered Parachute during its certification process. On the skydiving front I have been civvy jumping since 1973 with my career taking me to a multitude of countries around the globe and as far afield as New Zealand, Hong Kong, Denmark, Norway, Turkey, etc, etc (The lists could go on and on). I have been part of many demo teams parachuting around the UK and have also parachuted into an airshow. I have been filming multiple world skydiving record attempts and many UK ones too. We did get the UK SOS record on 8 July 2018. I also hold a FAA Master Riggers qualification. Watch on YouTube
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