‘Pete the Irish Pilot’ based near Bury St Edmunds sees online venture take off after lifelong flying career
Pete Hutchison can pinpoint exactly when the flight path of his life became clear - it was his fourth birthday and his parents had taken him to see the planes at a nearby airport.
Captivated by the sights, the sounds, even the smell of the fuel, his eyes were opened to the wonder of aviation and from then on the boy from Belfast was looking to the skies,
It led to a lifelong flying career first with the RAF then a commercial airline but now a new venture is taking off for Pete. A year after retiring he is fast becoming an internet star.
His posts as Pete the Irish Pilot are gaining millions of views as he shares videos, chats, and advice to nervous flyers and would-be aviators who he urges not to give up on their dreams.
Half joking he says his wife Sarah encouraged him to launch himself online after he retired because she was tired of listening to him talking.
“I was born and bred in Belfast, and growing up in the troubles of the 1960s and ‘70s there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to do interesting things,” Pete says. “At the age of four on my birthday my parents, who didn’t have much money at all, took me to Belfast’s Aldergrove Airport.
“I distinctly remember the smell of the aviation fuel and seeing all these aeroplanes, and that sowing an acorn in my head. From that point my fascination and love of aviation started.
“Given the circumstances of life in a very troubled community, and lack of money, we couldn’t do much at all, but I would always be looking at the sky when I could hear an aeroplane. Even before that, when I was learning to speak, I would point at the sky and say ‘sky planes’.
“Over time I cobbled together some pocket money and bought myself a very basic AV band radio to listen to communications from planes,” says Pete who now has a more sophisticated version that occasionally breaks in with voices from air traffic overhead.
“Then in my teens I was still very restricted, no normal life. I began to think I don’t know if my future is in Northern Ireland. I was in the Air Cadets at school. I applied for an RAF flying scholarship where they paid for you to do the training and get your private pilot’s licence. I was successful and that started me flying.
“So at the age of 17 I got my licence - I could fly before I could drive. I was so impressed that the Air Force was prepared to pay for this. It was an era of bleak economic times, airlines were not offering much in the way of employment, and I chose to go into the RAF.”
He did an RAF university cadetship reading aeronautical engineering then officer training at Cranwell, and flying training at the Central Flying School on the Jet Provost and the Hawk before training as an instructor, winning a trophy for the highest marks on his course.
“My first posting was to RAF Cranwell as a qualified flying instructor. Then I went into flying the Tornado GR1 at Honington and Marham and did that for 16 years,” said Pete who lives near Bury St Edmunds.
“For the last two and a half years I was on secondment to a government in the Middle East teaching people to fly jets. The Tornado was my favourite RAF aircraft. I was very fortunate that the squadron I was on tended to do different stuff to everyone else. We went to interesting places mixing reconnaissance with other roles.”
When he left the RAF, and already living in Suffolk, he made the transition from fast jets to airliners. Even then, in 1998, doing the exams cost more than £10,000. It costs vastly more than that now.
He got an interview with Virgin Atlantic. “I went to Gatwick wearing my only suit and tie, and I passed. Then they said you have to fly the 747 simulation on Sunday.”
That left him with a dilemma as he had planned a trip to Inverness and had already booked the flight. Changing the ticket would be expensive
His decision was made thanks to a twist of fate. “On the way to Inverness going through security I saw a Virgin Atlantic captain in front of me. I explained my situation and asked him if it was worth paying to change my ticket to go for the assessment.
“He said yes it is because I’ll be doing it - he had just taken a phone call asking him to do some simulator tests on Sunday. Afterwards I got a call saying your course on the Airbus starts in two weeks - and that started my career with Virgin.
“I began as a first officer for six years, then took my assessment for command and was accepted on my captain’s course.
“And for the rest of my career I flew three types of Airbus - the A340 600 was my favourite aircraft -and then finished up on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner as a training captain. I did 25 years in total doing long haul and ultra-long haul flights.
“Being a pilot you are really messing with your body clock and eating habits. Doing a trip to Australia and back we had a minimum of five days off afterwards to recover from jet lag - 26,000 miles flying in eight days, and even then you don’t really get over it.
“Luckily my GP used to be in the flying doctor service and understood the whole flying thing, but an ordinary GP would say don’t do this because it will shorten your life.
“I retired last April. I took the opportunity to go early because flying became more of a chore than fun due to things like extra security. I decided that’s enough now, closed my logbook and hung up my flying hat.
“Also young cubs don’t want some old curmudgeon sitting in the corner saying it wasn’t like that in my day.”
Pete and his wife Sarah, who have been together for 23 years and met when she worked as cabin crew, now divide their time between Suffolk, Ireland, Asia and Europe.
He was feeling driven to “put something back into the system” and she was a driving force in setting up the pages. “I was realising I had been very, very lucky never having had an accident and only had good luck in flying.
“She said you love talking. I'm sick of listening to you, why don’t you put it out there somehow in the world of aviation.”
So Pete the Irish Pilot hit the internet in early May. “We put it up as a post on Instagram to see where it goes and it has grown organically.
“My first post was about pilot’s watches. Then I put up some videos about how thunderstorms build up, then something about what will be the world’s longest flight (non-stop to Australia).
“Now it’s being driven increasingly reactively to what people write in about and ask me for.
“I started the Instagram page on May 2 and now have more than 60,000 followers and over 20 million views,” he says.
“On YouTube it has gone from absolutely nothing on May 12 to 11,780 subscribers and almost five million views by July 12.
“The video that caused the whole thing to go a bit bonkers was of a plane landing into a very difficult airport in Bhutan. How they didn’t crash I don’t know.”
The mountainous kingdom in the Himalayas has one of the most dangerous airports in the world - approached between 18,000-foot peaks onto a short runway visible only moments before landing.
“All my videos are sourced from the internet,” said Pete. “I always check with the original poster for copyright, and I try to do it in a humorous and light hearted way. It’s not the ‘court of Pete’.
“I explain incidents that have happened, but I don’t talk about crashes. What’s come out of it is a lot of people from all over the world are interested in aviation.”
He gets reactions from people as far apart as Costa Rica, Sri Lanka, Australia, India, China, North America, and the UK.
He soon discovered how many people were looking for reassurance due to a fear of flying.
“So people are saying I hear a noise, we get turbulence, and it makes them nervous. I’m not a psychiatrist or a counsellor, but I have 40 years of flying experience.
“I quickly got the feeling it is born out of not really knowing what is happening and that relates to not having any control. Your body is telling you everything isn’t right and you start to become anxious and nervous. I think it would help if I could just explain this to people.”
The other big issue is would-be pilots wondering how to get into the industry. “There are an awful lot of people wanting to get into aviation, and airlines are now crying out for pilots,” he said.
“When I was doing it they took a lot of pilots in from the military … so because those people were from within the same bubble airlines eventually were going to find themselves very short - all retiring around the same time.
“Now there are not so many RAF pilots coming out, and the military planes now are so very different to fly. Airlines are now offering sponsorship (to new pilots).”
With his lifelong love of flying Pete is keen to encourage others to learn, whether or not it will be their career.
“There are young kids - I have just put up a post about a boy aged 14 who is learning to fly. He sent me a video and asked me to comment on his landing. And I am saying to people it’s never too late to learn - there are private pilots flying in their 80s.
“Of course like anything in life it costs money. I’m saying there is gliding and it’s a fraction of the cost. Many of my colleagues started flying by learning to glide … a bit like Lewis Hamilton in F1 starting on go-karts.
“I didn’t have the bank of mum and dad. I didn’t have that money. I had the courage of my convictions. If you have the dream don’t take no for an answer - keep at it.
“Go up to the flying club and sweep the floors then one day someone will say do you want to come up in the plane for half an hour. Don’t have regrets, give it a blast. If you don’t like it at least you have tried.
“We all have a passion for flying and you need to have that through you like Brighton rock. If you cut through my arm you would see aviation.
“Learning to fly is hardcore in that there is an awful lot to learn. You put heart and soul and a lot of sweat and tears into it. If you don't, it's dangerous.”
With his online popularity climbing ever higher he is spending more and more time on it. “In the morning I do the messages and answer them. It’s mind- boggling. Such an enormous number of people that want to get into the world of aviation.”
He works in a garden office he has nicknamed The Palace.
“I might start at 8am and try to stop at 7pm - but it’s not continuous, there’s shopping, gardening. It’s full on. But if I didn’t like it and it was repetitive and boring I wouldn't do it.
“I make no money from this. I’m in it for a bit of a laugh and fun for everybody. There is no business plan behind it, no commercial thinking. I put stuff out, let’s see what comes back.”
That includes setting up jokey responses to current events like the Euros where he put up ‘best landings’ competitions between the countries to coincide with their matches.
“Variety is the spice of life,” he says. “I have thrown it up in the air, let’s see where the wind takes it.”
Follow Pete on Instagram here and YouTube here
