The day my new life truly took off… in a helicopter

Reeling from a divorce, Sarah Chenevix-Trench decided to conquer her fear of flying in the most radical way possible. She has never looked back

My hatred of flying was well known for years. The thought of getting into an aluminium tube, sidestepping into Row 28 and hurtling through the air at the mercy of an unknown pilot is one I’ve long found deeply unnerving. I’d grin and bear it for the sake of family holidays, but I’d never dreamed of setting foot in a helicopter or light aircraft.

So it was, to put it mildly, a moment of extreme inner turmoil and desperation that drove me to Denham Aerodrome in Buckinghamshire one bright spring morning six years ago, aged 50.

My husband of 26 years and the father of our three children had separated from me and our marriage had fallen apart. After finalising the divorce, and with our children grown up and installed at boarding school or university, I found myself alone with only the dog for company.

There were two options: spend a fortune on a psychotherapist (I tried it but it wasn’t for me) or do something so out of my comfort zone that I’d be forced from the dark recesses of self-analysis and distracted from my impending personal crisis. Learning to fly appeared to be the solution, unorthodox though it sounds.

My father piloted Spitfires during the Second World War and I had fond early memories of aerodromes, men in uniform and oily rags. So though terrifying, bizarre and – to friends and family – wholly bonkers, my decision to get a helicopter pilot’s licence felt exhilarating, liberating and strangely grounding. Proving I’d so dramatically moved on was an added bonus.

What I could never have realised when I climbed into that Robinson R44 – a light four-seater helicopter – for the first time was how drastically it would change my life. I can still recall the extraordinary sense of weightlessness on taking off and freedom as we breezed over fields, hedgerows and houses. Seeing everything from above was empowering. I was hooked.