Recently in our Monday Rewind section we revisited 1974 and the story of Michael Garner, an RAF air loadmaster who built and flew his own single-seater aircraft. We were delighted when he then got in touch. At 82 he still builds and flies aircraft. BARRIE HUDSON met him to find out more...

AS a boy during the Second World War, Michael Garner saw squadrons of Lancasters over the family garden and yearned to be an aviator.

As a young man he joined the RAF, only to be told he wasn’t pilot material.

Undaunted, he spent more than a decade building an aircraft of his own at his then home in Wootton Bassett, and won his licence to take its controls.

The machine flew in the summer of 1975 and Mr Garner hasn’t stopped building or flying aircraft since.

“The pilot thing was sheer stubbornness, really,” he admitted with a smile.

He’d just returned to his home in the countryside near Marlborough after a brisk six-mile walk that would tax plenty of people half his age.

In his workshop outside, his latest aircraft is taking shape, spar by spar, strut by strut and rivet by rivet.

He added: “If I wasn’t good enough for the RAF I thought, ‘Right, I’ll do it myself.’”

Mr Garner insisted on pointing out that the RAF helped him during his building project, though, including by allowing him to use part of a hangar.

He served for a total of 22 years during three stints, eventually becoming an air loadmaster.

He was based at Lyneham for several years, working abroad Hercules.

In civilian life, he worked in similar roles for cargo airlines and also spent three years with the Sultan of Oman’s air force. Aviation is a lifelong passion.

“I was born in Lincolnshire, in the Fens, and that was bomber country, so all the aircraft were flown from there,” he said..

“I always wanted to fly – I remember seeing and hearing them and I always wanted to fly.

“I remember sawing the wood up for the fire. I was down at the bottom of the garden and these bombers were flying over. I just wanted to be with them.”

Back in 1974 he told us: “I jumped off a haystack with an old umbrella.

“I cracked my head against a ladder and knocked myself out. But I still wanted to be a pilot when I grew up, and I started fixing propellers to milk churns to practise.”

The young Mr Garner helped to deliver milk to local RAF bases, getting a closer view of the machines and their crews and feeding his enthusiasm further.

His initial role in the RAF was as a driver-mechanic, and he served in locations including Malta, Iraq, Cyprus and North Africa.

Back in England in the 1950s he began private flying lessons from Skegness in an Auster light aircraft. Tuition cost £3 an hour – today it’s about £120 an hour.

“I think it was just to prove that I could actually fly, and of course, your first solo is memorable.”

There was also gliding, something he still does.

As time passed, the notion of building his own aircraft grew more attractive.

“I went back in the air force for the third time as a carpenter. I thought seriously about it then – that would have been 1960.

“I probably started in about 1961. It was finished in 1975, which seems a long while but I then became a member of air crew and had a two-year tour in Singapore and went to Cyprus as well.

“So I reckon roughly the total, from cutting the first wood to finishing it, was about 12 or 14 years, but I would think the total time roughly was about 3,000 hours. But the amazing thing is that the cost was about £700.

“The RAF were good to me in the end. They let me finish it off at Lyneham. I went in the corner of a hangar and used all their spray equipment and everything.”

The engine for the Luton Minor single-seater came from a wrecked air-cooled VW Variant car he bought for £80.

Son Christopher – Mr Garner also has a daughter, Wendy, and is a grandfather of two – helped with the build. Father and son still fly together.

The aircraft first flew in April of 1975 with a friend and fellow air loadmaster, John Boyes, at the controls.

Mr Garner was legally permitted to fly it only after finally getting his licence, which he took a fortnight off work to secure at Cranwell.

That summer he finally flew the machine himself.

“It happened at Lyneham on a Sunday morning before anybody was about, at about six o’clock. I took my wife, Sheila, and Christopher and Wendy. I took off and it was fine.”

In fact, it was more than fine; it was joyful. He remembers flying over and shouting a greeting to some bemused fishermen on a lake.

He kept the machine for several years, flying to various air shows.

On one occasion his love for flying the craft saved his life, when he turned down the chance of a work trip to Zambia in favour of flying his creation at an show.

The cargo aircraft he would have been rostered aboard crashed at Lusaka with all hands lost.

In a strange coincidence, many years later during a birthday trip to Didcot Steam Railway Centre, he met a man who revealed not only that he was a fellow air loadmaster but also that he was scheduled to fly aboard the doomed cargo flight and had been switched.

Mr Garner kept his first aircraft for five years before selling it and buying a two-seater.

There have been other homemade and ready-built craft down the years. The original was last heard of in the Humber area but is no longer registered.

For Mr Garner, flying has never lost its wonder.

“There are times of fear but then there are times of seeing sunrises – and the rainbows are round.”