AT THE tender age of 21, a Furness air pilot is flying high by starring in a new documentary about the airline easyJet.

First officer Ryan Clyde, aged 21, of Askam, will become a familiar face to millions of viewers when easyJet: Inside the Cockpit airs on ITV next week.

The rookie pilot landed his dream career and achieved a lifelong ambition flying Airbus A320 twin-engine jets earlier this year. Based at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, his day job regularly sees him flying passengers to destinations like Nice, Marrakesh, Tel Aviv, Naples, Milan, Krakow, Lisbon and Rome.

Ryan, the former head boy at Barrow's Chetwynde School, has described his flight training as "a real adventure". He has charted his progress via a blog and social media posts on Twitter and Instagram, featuring high-altitude views of landmarks like the Matterhorn.

"From as early as I can remember, flying has always been the highlight of the family holiday," Ryan explained. "This excitement was strengthened when invited to the flight deck of a United Airlines 737 during a family vacation to California in 2004 at age eight.

"My parents got me a trial flying lesson for Christmas at age 16 from Blackpool and I definitely caught ‘the bug’. I recognised during my GCSE years that I was far too impatient for university and just wanted to fly."

After A-levels in summer 2014, his pilot training began with six months of theoretical knowledge in Southampton, where he sat 14 Civil Aviation Authority exams covering subject areas such as principles of flight, aircraft performance and meteorology. In a post on Chetwynde School's website, Ryan wrote: "This was incredibly intense and certainly one of the biggest challenges of the course but certainly laid the foundations for the rest of training."

After passing those exams, he spent eight months at CTC Aviation’s training location in Phoenix, Arizona. There, he completed his basic flight training, gained experience and obtained his commercial pilot’s licence. Once back in the UK, Ryan completed his advanced training at Bournemouth and Southampton, and he began flying operationally with easyJet in January 2017.

"I’m hugely excited to have realised my dream and have thoroughly enjoyed the journey of getting here," said Ryan. "It’s an honour to be kick-starting my career at such a fast-paced, dynamic and growing airline with an excellent reputation for safety, customer service and on-time performance."

The fly-on-the-wall documentary is to air on ITV on Monday, August 14 and 21, at 9pm, narrated by Stephen Fry.

ITV told the Gazette: "This primetime series opens the door into the cockpit with unprecedented fixed-rig camera access and follows rookie pilots as they take their first steps from the flight school classroom, into the flight simulator, and finally flying with hundreds of paying passengers on board."