Chris Dawes ph.D
Chief Flying Instructor, microlighting. teaching paragliding, hang gliding, paramotoring & powered hang gliding; microlight tug pilot.
Chris Dawes has been flying for 28 years and flies anything and everything, from paragliders to twin engine planes, holding a Commercial and Instrument EASA licence and conducting Single Pilot Air Taxi operations. His duties are wide-ranging from training and examining microlight and paragliding students, to display flying. Having flown on the British Paragliding Team for many years including conducting British Team Training Camps, he also won the British Cross Country Championships (1995). Chris also leads courses in cross country flying and competition paragliding in the Alps. He is a great believer in teaching the right way from the start, so that when under pressure, a pilot produced by Airways Airsports will revert to their basic training to give them the instinctive, correct, safe response.
Chris has been active in promoting safety within the sports of hang gliding and paragliding – he has been instrumental in producing both the teaching syllabus and new techniques adopted by the BHPA.
Judy Leden MBE
Senior Instructor, teaching hang gliding, paragliding, aerotowing, microlight tug flying.
Judy has been involved in Airways Airsports since the start. She has been Women’s World Hang Gliding Champion twice and has a string of world records to her name. Well known for her enthusiasm and love of flying, she is one of the best instructors in the UK. Judy also flies paragliders (World Champion 1995, 2 World Records) and microlights as well as light aircraft. She runs courses in the Alps for paragliding and hang gliding, teaching hill conversions, cross country flying and competition flying. She was awarded her MBE by the Queen for services to hang gliding, and received the Royal Aeroclub’s Gold Medal.
Andy Snell
Chief Flying Instructor, teaching paragliding, paramotoring, hang gliding & powered hang gliding. Tandem paraglider & tandem hang glider pilot & microlight tug pilot.
Andy flew sailplanes before he turned to hang gliding, then paragliding and microlighting. He runs the paragliding and hang gliding training at Airways Airsports. His laid-back style and great sense of humour inspires confidence in his students. Andy believes in encouraging pilots to think for themselves, and guides them through their initial low flights right through to teaching them how to soar and thermal.
Mark Hilton
Chief Flying Instructor for flexwing and fixed wing microlights and microlight tug pilot.
Mark joined Airways in 2012. He started flying at 19, moving on to microlights in 2009. He only called us to book in for a paragliding course, then somehow found himself joining us as a microlight instructor and has never left! He is an easy-going and cheerful teacher, patient as a saint but beware – he is a mad drummer in his spare time, and performs in a Queen tribute band, playing at all ends of the country. He rock climbs and scuba dives – a man of many talents.
Shelley Smith
Microlight Instructor teaching flexwing and fixed wing flying, paragliding and tandem paragliding pilot. Microlight Examiner, engineer.
Shelley is a great instructor – a gifted pilot of microlights as well as an international competitor in paragliding who is patient and thorough, with a deep knowledge and love of flying. This innate feeling for aircraft probably stems from having been literally brought up among microlights. As she was growing up, her parents ran the largest microlight school in the country, while Shelley’s second home became the hangars of Popham Airfield. Shelley is rarely seen without her Jack Russell, “Amos” in tow. Amos doesn’t understand Shelley’s need to keep leaving the planet, so if you see a small brown and white dog howling at the skies, you can bet that Shelley is airborne once more.
Barry Bredin
Paragliding instructor.
Barry came to Airways for a tow conversion course and fell in love with the place and people. Soon after learning to fly 5 years ago, he travelled to India and flew Western Ghats. His passion for flying matches his love of travel, and has clocked up a lot of flying expeditions over the past few years, to the French Alps, Chamonix, Lake Annecy, Switzerland, Morocco, Macedonia, and countless times in Turkey with 4 SIV courses.
