Dennis Taylor has achieved his life-long ambition - to learn to fly.

At 78, the retired BT engineer from Otley is one of the oldest men in the area to win his wings.

His achievement comes more than 60 years after he first became hooked on flying as a teenager in Blackpool, where he enjoyed watching the trainee pilots at nearby Squires Gate.

When his mother refused to let him join the ATC - Air Training Corps - he enrolled in the school "spotting club."

He learned to recognise the outline of all the World War Two Allied aircraft simply by their silhouette.

And when he wasn't spotting fighters and bombers, he was modelling them out of balsa wood.

But it wasn't until his 70s that he was able to get behind the throttle and joystick of a proper plane.

Forty hours of flying tuition, ten of which were solo, and five tough written tests later he was awarded his wings.

"It's a challenge and quite expensive - £90 an hour to hire the aircraft and £25 an hour for the instructor - so the money adds up," said Dennis.

"I think I must be one of the oldest people to start to learn to fly. There are pilots my age and older - and there are some war time pilots still flying, but I was old to learn.

"Not many people learn to drive in their 70s never mind learning to fly. I actually got my free television licence when I was 70, before my pilot's licence."

Once a week, when the weather permits, Dennis takes to the sky above the Yorkshire Dales or takes a trip to the Yorkshire coast.

He doesn't own his own aircraft, it's a bit expensive on a pension, so he hires a two-seater Cessna 150.

One of his favourite trips is to fly towards Pateley Bridge, soar over Grimwith reservoir, above Malham Tarn and Malham Cove, swing round by Ribblehead viaduct and swoop back over Angram and Scar House reservoirs before heading back to an airfield near Leeds.

And its usually a trip he does alone. For Angela, his 63-year-old wife, learned to her cost that she gets air-sick in small aircraft.

On their first trip together they were bound for the Yorkshire coast and only got as far as York, before Dennis had to turn back.

"I was OK at first and enjoying it and then I started to feel really sick with the turbulence," she said.

"We turned round and Dennis handed me a Morrison's bag and said please be sick in there, not in the plane."

When Dennis is not head in the clouds, he has his feet firmly on the ground as a member of Ilkley-based walking group, Evergreens.

"So if I'm not flying over the fells I'm enjoying it from ground level," he added.

e.mail:clive.white @bradford.newsquest.co.uk