{"id":249810,"date":"2026-07-02T22:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T22:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/02\/jamie-oliver-becomes-a-qualified-pilot-after-a-year-of-the-hardest-training\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T22:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T22:00:15","slug":"jamie-oliver-becomes-a-qualified-pilot-after-a-year-of-the-hardest-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/02\/jamie-oliver-becomes-a-qualified-pilot-after-a-year-of-the-hardest-training\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamie Oliver becomes a qualified pilot after a year of the &#8216;hardest training&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"byline\">\n<p>        <time itemprop=\"datePublished\" content=\"2026-07-02\" datetime=\"1783029615\" pubdate=\"\">2 July 2026<\/time>\n    <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/jamie-oliver\/\" class=\"exposure-link \" data-linktrack=\"LinkTracker,articleExposure,jamie-oliver\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jamie Oliver<\/a> has become a qualified pilot.<\/p>\n<p>                            <\/p>\n<p class=\"image-caption landscape\">Chef Jamie Oliver has become a qualified pilot \/ \u00a9 Instagram<\/p>\n<p>The 51-year-old chef feels proud to have earned his wings after a year of the &#8220;hardest&#8221; training, which included nine tough exams.<\/p>\n<p>Jamie took to Instagram on Thursday (02.07.26) and posted a series of shots of himself during the 12-month course, including flying a plane.<\/p>\n<p>The restaurateur\u2019s caption read: &#8220;I\u2019m very proud and excited to share that I\u2019ve qualified as a pilot.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>                      \t\t\t<!-- Dailymotion player (contact: Kutay.vardar@dailymotion.com) --><\/p>\n<p>Jamie fell &#8220;deeply in love with aviation&#8221; after his 51-year-old wife, Jools, gifted him a &#8220;first discovery flight&#8221; for his birthday.<\/p>\n<p>\nHe added: &#8220;After a year of training I finally passed ..it\u2019s certainly been one of the hardest, most wonderful and inspiring things I have ever done! <\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;It has challenged me in so many ways and stretched me as a person. (sic)&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nThe cookbook author went on to thank everyone who helped him on his journey to becoming a pilot.<\/p>\n<p>\nJamie wrote: &#8220;A huge thank you to Mick Pitcher @mickypitch1, what a man, salt of the earth and the best teacher I could have dreamed of. <\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;Thank you to Blondie @captainblondy your a true star, big love Mike and Carol at @andrewsfieldaviation, what a wonderful country airfield and what a community. <\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;Thank you to chef Tony and the great team at @norwichaviationcentre where I passed through on my cross country solo, and big love to the guys at @conington_aviation. (sic)&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nThe Naked Chef alum has obtained a Private Pilot Licence (PPL), which allows Jamie to fly single-engine aircraft for personal and recreational use.<\/p>\n<p>\nAccording to the UK Civil Aviation Authority, PPL&#8217;s are earned after 45 hours of flight training, completing practical skills test, and passing nine theoretical knowledge exams.<\/p>\n<p>\nHowever, the exams were particularly challenging for the star because he is dyslexic &#8211; a learning difficulty that affects reading and writing skills.<\/p>\n<p>\nJamie continued in his caption: &#8220;I had to do 9 exams for my PPL this was very Daunting for me as a DYSLEXIC so A big thank you to Seb at @pooleysaviationacademy and @pooleysflightequipment for allowing me to get the digital files of my Pooleys books, I was then able to load them into @naturalreaderapp and pass all my aviation exams and with flying colours!!. (Natural reader would have made such a difference to young me at school!) <\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;Big love to Gary at @aircornwall for letting me fly around the silly isles of Cornwall, joy joy joy, and to Koos at @morningstar_flight_academy flying around Table Mountain in South Africa was breathtaking. <\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;A special thank you to @lindawheelergroundschool she\u2019s such great visual teaching. Not to mention the guys at @easypplgroundschool\u2026. (sic)&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nJamie concluded by saying how &#8220;invigorated&#8221; he has felt since entering his 50s &#8220;to take on something so challenging&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>\nJamie added: &#8220;And although the exams were hard, I did it. I\u2019m buzzing I\u2019m on cloud nine, inspired, proud of myself and so grateful to have met so many wonderful people along the way. <\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;Now the learning really starts. Let\u2019s see how this inspires my cooking. <\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;Love Jamie xx (sic).&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!-- Pagination --><\/p>\n<p><!-- playbuzz --><br \/>\n<!-- end playbuzz--><\/p>\n<p><!-- \n\n<div data-cn-project=\"femalefirst\">\n    \n<\/div>\n\n --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><br \/>\n<!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><\/p>\n<p>    <!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><br \/>\n    <!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/celebrity\/jamie-oliver-becomes-qualified-pilot-after-year-hardest-training-1446900.html?f=rss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2 July 2026 Jamie Oliver has become a qualified pilot. Chef Jamie Oliver has become a qualified pilot \/ \u00a9 Instagram The 51-year-old chef feels proud to have earned his wings after a year of the &#8220;hardest&#8221; training, which included nine tough exams. Jamie took to Instagram on Thursday (02.07.26) and posted a series of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":249811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4993,15885],"class_list":{"0":"post-249810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-jamie-oliver","9":"tag-jools-olivier"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}