Leavesley Aviation paragliding school

Mark started hangliding in 1989 at the Peak school of hangliding with Paul Willis and Allen Hethrington, both are fantastic instructors. After a year he started to learn to paraglide. Since then he has clocked up thousands of hours on many aircraft types, Mark is also the chief flying instructor for the British Model Association and the chief flying instructor for BHPA/LEAVESLEY AVIATION'S AIR EXPERENCE SCHOOL.
In 2003 Mark started thinking about competing so he started flying a lot with Kai Coleman, John Kennedy and Neil Roberts who all helped him in many different ways.
At the 2006 British Nationals in Ager Spain Mark picked up 2nd place for serial class paraglider, he also won rookie of the year and came 5th overall.
In 2007 he had the great honour of flying for Great Britian in the Bleriot Cup and won with team GB. He was then asked to fly at the world paragliding championships as an air Marshal and camera ship, a great honour indeed.
The British Squad selected for training in 2007 is as follows : Adrian Thomas, Bruce Goldsmith, Craig Morgan, Fiona Macaskill, Innes Powell, John Ellison, Kai Coleman, Louise Burnham, Mark Leavesley, Mark Watts, Nia Harland, Nicky Moss, Steve Ham, Steve Nash and Russell Ogden.
Many of the squad are intending to enter the Paragliding World Cup tour, the highest competition circuit in the world. It is hoped that Bruce Goldsmith and Russell Ogden will be mentoring our top pilots during the World Cup events in preparation for the Europeans in 2008.

In 2010 Mark decided to give up competing, to concentrate on guiding and passing on his skills to others. Now living and working 7 days a week guiding in the lovely Shropshire hills with his wife Sian and two children Chloe and Olivia, life is coming on a treat with many happy customers.

In January 2011 Mark became a (C.F.I) Chief flying instructor and also registered Leavesley Aviation with the BHPA as a school. Thank's to all the many pilots that pushed me in this direction and a massive thank you to Sian for putting up with me over the years.
In 2012 Mark started a totally new concept in paraglide fly/guiding were you can join his flying club "Team Leavesley Aviation" for a one off fee and get one to one and group fly/guiding all year round with no extra hidden costs. This makes for very good value for money as many pilots come to us and pay £25 per day, so 12 days of fly/guiding and you have spent £300! Our joining fee for a full year is £300 and you can come to us 7 days a week if you want. Within 1 hour of this idea going on the forum we had 4 members, since then we have nearly a full membership! For more information on becoming a Team Leavesley Aviation member go to the guiding section.

2013, one hell of an amazing year for Leavesley Aviation and the busiest yet. A full 32 member team of all levels of pilot, many tandem disabled flights done for charity this year with great success and lots of fly/guiding for the team pilots again with 100% success and not one accident! we have done some air ambulance charity flights donating money to this great cause too. I am so thrilled with how the team and company is coming on, thank you to all the customers and my new team mates for their custom and help.

In 2016 Mark became a fully licensed flying school with the British hangliding and paragliding association (BHPA) to be able to teach absolute beginners up to getting there full flying licences.
Leavesley Aviation has a fully stocked school with gliders-harness-helmets- radios and everything else you need to learn with us, we have our own classroom with projector for lectures and DVD’s to relax in when it’s not flyable to do some theory ready for your exam. The school is run on a very small one to one basis so you get maximum instruction from Mark, a typical course is 3 to 4 students maximum.

Mark's Sponsors have been
GIN GLIDERS
GRADENT PARAGLIDERS
AVA SPORT
UK AIRSPORTS
AIRCROSS PARAGLIDERS
BLU-EYES EYEWEAR
OZONE GLIDERS
Hope you enjoyed reading about how Marks paragliding career has evolved, if you fancy learning to fly, you have one of the uk's best and most knowledgeable paraglide pilots to teach you!