Corinne, who lives in the Launceston area, delivered the latest ‘Autumn Lecture’ about her experiences in becoming an aerobatic pilot, flying in competitions and aerial displays, and building her own bi-plane, a ‘Pitts Special’. It was a marathon project that took six years.

A packed hall at Trebullett, where previous lectures have been given by the likes of Glastonbury Festival co-creator Michael Eavis CBE, heard her story of flying full throttle involving some death-defying stunts. It had all started when she was approaching her fortieth birthday in Yorkshire, on a friend’s suggestion to take up the extreme sport.

For someone accomplished in performing risky aerobatic displays across the south west - from Falmouth (St Mawes Boat Show) to Weston-super-Mare and from Torquay to Torbay, Corinne revealed she actually “couldn’t stomach fairground rides” in her youth.

After taking some flying lessons and making her first aerial manoeuvre, she described the buzz she got. It was the “beginning of a new and expensive addiction,” she said. Having entered a number of competitions and moving up the rankings, she then bought a share in a plane.

“Landing is the most difficult thing…more so than flying [stunts],” she said. At that time she was - to her knowledge - the only female flying aerobatic act in competition in the whole country.

Subsequently she moved from flying competitions to flying in air shows, corporate events, around regattas and wedding celebrations such as over Pentillie Castle through her ‘Twirlybatics’ business. She then acquired her own airplane, described as the ‘birth of a very special Pitts’.

To build and renovate the partially built plane from around 2009 to 2013, a significant amount of engineering and metal work was involved as well as installing an engine, putting the fabric covering around the fuselage and painting it. Having moved from Yorkshire to Somerset, she then returned to Cornwall just before the end of the test flying and kept the plane at Bodmin Airfield.

However, in building the plane she had not had an opportunity to fly it and had to get “back up to speed” - and quickly. “I was terrified at the prospect of flying this plane,” she noted. In building the plane, Dennis said: “I enjoyed that more than flying it.”

After a number of years flying she decided to hang up her flying boots and engage in a career shift after a ‘scary’ encounter over the skies of Gloucestershire dodging clouds that aerobatic bi-planes have to avoid.

As a keen cyclist, since 1993 Dennis has been running a business dedicated to producing high quality and stylish cycle clothing. More recently, she has been keeping pet sheep and making fleece rugs in Launceston.

“There were some scary moments [on that flight] and it was a distinct possibility that I might not make it… so I decided to call it a day.” 

Rather philosophically she added that “life moves in sections,” before taking questions from the floor.

For more information on Corinne Dennis and her performance cycle clothing business see:  https://www.corinnedennis.co.uk/

By Roger Aitken

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