Jacob Newson: Leeds boy, 7, takes to skies for 'first flying lesson'

An aviation obsessed seven-year-old boy has taken to the skies for his first flying lesson.

Jacob Newson, from Leeds, took the controls of the Piper PA-28 Cherokee during a flight out of White Waltham Airfield, near Maidenhead, under the watchful eye of instructor Mark Green.

His father, Andrew, said: "He had control for about five to 10 seconds and he absolutely loved it."

Jacob added: "It was pretty scary, I thought my dad was going to throw up."

Jacob hit the headlines in 2019 when he met the Royal Air Force's aerobatic crew after his father tweeted a request for them to salute him.

Mr Newson, an emergency medical technician for the Yorkshire Ambulance Service, said his son has been a fan of aviation all his life and described his first lesson on Friday as "probably the most exciting time of his life to date".

"It was fantastic seeing Jacob's face when he turned round and smiled at me as the reality sunk in that he was going up in the cockpit of the plane," he said.

"He's been on commercial airliners before when we've been on holiday but he's never been in anything as small as this.

"The instructor let him have a little go with the controls when we got up to about 3,000ft (914m) - he just put them in his hands and told him to be really gentle."

Later this year the father and son are planning to climb Yorkshire's three highest peaks - Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough - to raise money for St Gemma's Hospice in Leeds following the death of Jacob's mother, Andrea, in December 2020 from breast cancer.

Mr Newson said: "It was always going to be Andrea who would go on Jacob's first proper flight because I don't like flying, it scares me to death.

"So I think she would have been laughing yesterday to think she had got one over on me."

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