Mark is a well-known commercial pilot and flying instructor who specialises in vintage aircraft.  He describes himself as a 21st Century Tiger Moth Pilot although Mark's career path has been slightly unconventional.

Mark studied Physics at University and worked as a Research Scientist for twenty years, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1987.  He says he learnt to become an optimist during this period, because "As a Scientist you are constantly trying to do what no-one else has yet managed to do."

But it's not all been plain sailing.

He caught polio as a child, and at the age of 37, he nearly died after accidentally being given ten times the dose of Typhoid and Cholera vaccine.  As he recovered, he found he had completely lost the ability to speak.   He struggled desperately to speak articulately again and after only four months had regained enough to undertake a lecture trip to China giving presentations of his research in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou.

Although this experience seemed devastating at the time Mark now claims that it was the best thing that could have happened to him because it enabled him to really see his life in perspective.  Unfortunately the experience also triggered the first signs of Post-Polio-Syndrome, a condition that can arise thirty years or more after childhood polio.

He changed career and started two office equipment companies from scratch. Ten years later he sold these successful businesses, but instead of retiring, he retrained as a commercial pilot; perhaps not the obvious choice for someone in their early 50's who had polio as a child.

When it because obvious that he would become a full-time wheelchair user, Mark, in typical fashion, confronted the challenge head-on.  He didn't just adapt his home, he literally had it bulldozed and rebuilt it as a fully-accessible house with many of his innovations for easy-living.   To him, this was just another set of problems to be solved.  Indeed he won a design award for this work, his own Grand Design.

More recently, his rapid and logical thinking also enabled him to survive an aircraft crash in the Peak District in which the aircraft was completely destroyed.  "It's all down to preparation and training" he calmly explained during the subsequent BBC interviews. 

Despite now using a wheelchair following the late effects of his childhood polio, Mark still flies vintage aircraft regularly.   This is real seat-of-the-pants flying, using traditional piloting skills rather than an array of characterless computers.    The engines are still started by hand, the wings are still covered in fabric, and the instruments are the latest 1930's designs

In addition to flying vintage aircraft, Mark instructs for the charity "Aerobility", which provides flight-experiences and flight training for disabled people, both civilian and ex-military.   Indeed he is their only fully qualified disabled flying instructor.

Mark is also a qualified aerobatic instructor, so when he talks about flying the sky really is the limit.