Will Wales Wins Wings

OK, I used to be a Baptist preacher. You expected me to resist alliterating in the header? Hah!


Yes, it's the flyboy pictured above. Well, sort of. More on that in a minute.


Oh, we're featuring William, all right.


Yes, this one, Diana's firstborn. William Arthur Philip Louis Windsor, born 21 June 1982.


Seen here with his grandmother, Her Britannic Majesty, and the old man, Carlos de Galles.


This week, of course, I did not have to scrounge for photos. Did you know his parents called him Wombat when he was very young? He is left-handed, and I have just begun to like him more for having learned that. He was also a rap DJ for a small radio station in Tortel, Chile, during part of his gap year after graduating from Eton. He majored in Geography at St Andrew's.


Barefoot at the beach.


So, what did his granny say during the graduation ceremony from Sandhurst?


Not a gym rat, but not hard on the eyes either.


He's a 2nd Lieutenant in the Blues and Royals.


Spare Capacity
But it was time for a rotation in the air, so he's been training with the RAF. Normally it takes about 4 years to become a fully-trained RAF pilot but he got the crash course (I'm sorry, a most unfortunate term to use in this context) of 13 weeks. The verdict is that this makes him a functional pilot but he won't be an operational pilot.

Wing Commander Andy Lovell who helped to train William and carried out his final test that earned him his wings praised the royal's flying skills.

He said: "William was very good. I was very impressed by his flying skills. He had a natural handling ability and he was very quick to learn. He responded well to instructions and demonstrated plenty of spare capacity." (source)

The Times Online was a bit snarky about it.

After a four-month crash course in how not to crash, Prince William received his RAF wings yesterday, recognising his basic ability to fly an aeroplane the right way up.

You can catch a video on his training (from Clarence House) here.

Needless to say, Prince William learned how to stare the thing down, the first step in showing it who's master.


Pops pins him
HRH the Prince of Wales, as Air Chief Marshal, pinned the RAF wings on Prince William at RAF Cranwell. This event was in the UK headlines today, which is why we feature William this week.


HRH's relationship with Miss Kate Middleton has been an on-again-off-again thing and they had not been seen together in public for quite a while. They resumed dating quietly of late and she was very present for this occasion.


Go for the gossip!


These last two pics may thus be of the future King and Queen of England. We shall see.

Congrats on your wings, Your Royal Highness.
--the BB