Council Members

Technical Member - Mike Vaisey

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Mike learned to fly with the London Gliding Club at Dunstable Downs in 1964 while at school and gained his PPL the following year on the “new” Cessna 150s of the Luton Flying Club, just missing the era of the club’s fleet of Austers.

With an interest in aircraft of the 30s, in 1968 he began building a Luton Minor in which he subsequently toured extensively on the Continent and won the “Best Homebuilt” at the 1974 PFA Rally at Sywell. He later served for several years on the Committee of the PFA and he is a PFA Inspector. He acquired his first Tiger Moth in the mid 1970s, subsequently sold in favour of a Gipsy Moth, while the discovery of a Tiger Moth “basket-case” project led, with a group of friends, to the restoration of G-APLU to airworthiness and a “Best Restoration” award at Woburn Abbey in 1989.

Since then, Mike has campaigned ‘PLU extensively, with long-distance flight into Europe and the Nordic countries and Russia, as well as touring the aircraft in New Zealand. For fifteen years he was a member of the Diamond Nine Tiger Moth Team and now flies with the Tiger Nine Team.

While in private practice as a quantity surveyor, in 1989 an extended sabbatical tour cemented many aviation contacts in Australia, New Zealand and the USA. With his extensive knowledge of the technical and practical side of early aeroplanes, and seeking “something interesting in aviation”, in 1991 Mike set up Vintage Engine Technology (Vintech) with Paul Sharman, to specialise in the repair and restoration of vintage and out-of-production aero-engines and their accessories, under full CAA and now EASA Approval.

His passion for old machinery extends to vintage cars and motorcycles as family pets and he is a member of the VSCC.

With a little over 2000 hours on some 90 types, his current mounts are his Tiger Moth and Cessna 180. Mike holds UK, USA and Australian licences, Display Authorisation and FAI competition licence.

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