For Tony Davies, learning to fly is presenting all the usual challenges. Right now, he's most worried about getting the flare right on landing - as well he might, because his first solo may not be far away.

After the landing, he has a less common problem: getting into and out of the Shadow microlight requires a helping hand from the instructor. Tony has cerebral palsy which means that his legs don't bend. That also makes the use of rudder pedals impossible, so it's just as well that the cockpit in which he sits doesn't have any.

Tony, a 56 year-old local government officer from London, flies with Aviation for Paraplegics and Tetraplegics (APT), based at Old Sarum near Salisbury. APT owns two Shadows that have been adapted so that they can be flown by people with disabilities. The aircraft are operated and maintained by the Shadow Flight Centre, which also provides the instructors.

In control  

It's no surprise that Tony has ended up in a cockpit - the question is why it took so long. After all, he's had a lifelong fascination with aircraft that included a typical boyhood spent building Airfix models and fuelled for many years by living near Biggin Hill. In the 1970s he did a little gliding, but this was in standard, unmodified aircraft with no way of operating the rudder. Tony didn't see much future in being a perennial passenger.

Cars were a different matter. In the late 1970s, he got his RAC rally and autocross speed event licences and for around five years could be seen tearing up the roads. One year, he was a co-driver in the RAC Rally - mechanical failure giving his team the dubious distinction of being the first to drop out. It was cost that put a stop to Tony's competition driving, something he might look back on with a sense of irony now he's into flying.

The strange thing is that this lifelong interest never prompted Tony to consider learning to fly. He assumed it would be far too expensive and never fully achievable because he can't operate rudder pedals. He simply wasn't aware of the availability of hand-controlled aircraft. "I didn't know they existed so I didn't look for them."

That changed when he visited me in France. At the time, my local club was operating a Rallye modified with hand controls and Tony lost no time in getting airborne with the instructor. I'd recently returned from Old Sarum where I'd picked up brochures about APT and the British Disabled Flying Club (BDFC - see box), but knowing that Tony has a deep aversion to anything with the word 'disabled' in it, I was a little hesitant about handing them over. I should have known better - the desire to fly was just too strong. The next thing I knew, I got an email from Tony about his first flight with APT.

In no time, he'd applied for - and failed to get - a RIAT scholarship (see box) and had extended his flying experiences by attending one of the Flying Days at Goodwood, organised by the BDFC.

Business as usual  

At the time of writing, Tony has about 18 hours instruction under his belt and is on course to get his microlight licence. Maybe this doesn't sound like an earth-shattering achievement, but that's precisely the point. When people with disabilities fly aeroplanes, it's often treated as being little short of miraculous when at APT it is just business as usual.

This is not to underestimate the dedication and courage displayed by some people with severe disabilities. Anyone with mobility problems is going to have to work harder and summon that extra bit of motivation, and the more severe the problem, the greater the effort needed. Ever since Douglas Bader became a household name, there's been at least some awareness that people with disabilities can fly. And there have been some notable achievements. For example, BDFC co-founder Tim Ellison was a Harrier pilot who, in 1992, was severely injured when his aircraft suffered a catastrophic engine failure while in the hover. Two years later, he was one of the first to fly an APT aircraft, when the organisation was newly formed. The same year, he gained his US commercial licence and started working as a fire-fighting pilot.

Since then, he has gained US ATPL and UK commercial licences and in 2001 was the first British disabled pilot to fly around the world - a trip that took in the London-Sydney Air Race.

These are outstanding and inspirational accomplishments. At the same time, there is a commonplace aspect to flying by people with disabilities, and this is not a fringe activity to the world of general aviation - it is part of the wide spectrum of private flying as we know and love it. But it does deserve to be better known so that as many people as possible can benefit.

"It's not some great adventure," says Tony. "I just feel I'm in the right place when I'm flying. And I don't feel it's a huge achievement just because I'm using hand controls."

Original inspiration  

APT was the inspiration of one man - entrepreneur James Edmonds - who enjoyed flying his Streak Shadow and wanted to open up that world of freedom to everyone. He hit on the idea of a trust and approached the Shadow Flight Centre, run by Raymond Proost and Fiona Luckhurst, which had formed at Old Sarum the previous year.

APT is managed by Jack Simpson who retired from the Army with the rank of Lt Colonel but whose manner is more like an avuncular Sergeant-Major. Jack's dedication to the task and care for his charges is palpable and, if Tony's reaction is anything to go by, he inspires equal affection from APT's customers.

While its founder carried the financial burden for APT for several years, until his retirement, since 1998 it has operated like any charity and is dependent on fund-raising. Jack works hard at this, with the help of Michael Zilka who is the APT's fundraising consultant, and has had considerable success in attracting corporate sponsorship from the likes of Lloyds Bank and the award, over three years, of £37,000 in National Lottery money. The people of Salisbury also give generously, and APT is often the beneficiary of local raffles. But attracting funding is a never-ending task and APT is competing with major national and international charities. So the organisation welcomes contributions, whether long-term or one-off, from organisations and individuals.

APT has seen 10 of its students achieve their PPLs and currently has nine training. For various reasons, some students will never gain their PPLs, but most are content to continue flying dual. And APT is happy to provide flight experience - whether it's with a view to taking it up as a hobby or just as a one-off. The physiotherapists at Salisbury hospital's spinal unit often suggest this to their patients.

Customers come from all over - there have been students from Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man and one drove his van to Salisbury from Munich. APT owns two spacious and comfortable trailer homes on the airfield which are available at very cheap rates to students.

Some of the luckier ones - including Tony - have qualified for flying scholarships, which is where some of the Lottery money is going. This pays for half the cost of the flight training and ground school, plus club and test fees.

APT's undoubted success was recognised in 2003 when it became the second organisation to receive the BDFC's Jim Parkinson Memorial Trophy. (The previous year it went to Wolds Gliding Club which has a Schleicher K21 converted to hand controls). 

The aircraft  

The two Shadows that APT owns were factory built, and Jack estimates the additional cost for installing the hand controls at the time at just £2,000 per aircraft, putting the total cost for each aircraft at around £28,000. In each case, the rear cockpit, for the instructor, is completely standard.

G-MYUS (which Tony seems to consider his private aeroplane) is configured for people who can't use their legs. The rudder pedals have been removed and control of the rudder transferred to what is normally the throttle. This is now like a sidestick, with fore-and-aft movement for throttle and sideways movement for rudder, plus electric trim and PTT switch. This control and the Shadow's sidestick, have also sprouted cycle-like brake levers, giving the pilot differential braking control.

G-MYLV is for pilots with more severe disabilities, such as those who have suffered broken spines. Using brake levers isn't an option if you have no gripping power, so in this aircraft the two sidesticks each have two additional prongs. Pilots wedge their wrists into the control and achieve the required movement with the aid of shoulder movements. A lever behind the pilot's head activates the brakes and a push-to-talk button is mounted on a band fastened around the pilot's neck. You just push your chin down to operate it. Finally, there's a tube attached to the boom mic of the headset which operates the trim - suck for nose-up, blow for nose-down. It is overridden by the aircraft's standard trim control. 

Equal in the skies  

The Shadow is ideal for this kind of use. The cockpit is relatively low to the ground and has a side-opening canopy, easing the process of access for people in wheelchairs. A hoist is available for those who lack the upper-body strength to climb in. However, one of the few additional rules with which disabled pilots must comply is that they have to be able to exit by themselves in an emergency - in other words, they have to be able to undo the seatbelt and, at the very least, roll out of the aircraft.

Once inside the aircraft, any differences between APT's students and the others in Old Sarum's circuit fall away. Indeed, many of APT's satisfied customers cite this as one of the greatest freedoms they enjoy when flying.

Raymond goes along with this up to a point. He emphasises that the two APT aircraft have been modified for the most common requirements of disabled pilots, but they are a compromise. Every person who trains with APT has a unique set of abilities and in an ideal world everyone would have an aircraft modified to match their precise requirements. To a degree, the pilots have to adapt to the aircraft as much as the aircraft is adapted for them, although this is true in some way for all pilots - we all acquire new sets of skills and reflexes when we learn to fly.

There are some things that some disabled pilots find more difficult, too. Raymond gives the example of spiral dives where the extra wing loading demands control effort that people can find a real challenge. And some people have restricted head movement, which can affect their look-out.

Cross-countries pose a slight challenge. For those who use wheelchairs, Jack meets students at the 'away' field - usually Compton Abbas or Popham - with their chairs, so that they can get to the control office and get their logbooks signed-off.

Another unusual requirement faced by APT pilots is that they normally have a medical with an AME. The NPPL licence doesn't strictly require this, needing just a GP's sign-off. But few GPs understand what's involved in flying. APT has a close relationship with an AME with nine years' experience of getting disabled people airborne and the students in turn appreciate his guidance. In Tony's case, the AME's assessment was a classically laconic, "you'll never fly Concorde but you'll do".

As a result of these additional hurdles, Raymond is reluctant to say categorically that anyone can get a licence through APT, and emphasises that it's essential that any budding pilot carries out an assessment flight first, to assess how well their abilities fit with the aircraft modifications - and simply to see if they enjoy it.

"People should fly because they enjoy it, and worry later about getting a licence," says Raymond, but adds: "Generally, flying ability isn't the problem - it's mental attitude. If they have the will to do this, they will probably succeed." And when training, he works the students hard. "They're there to fly - I'm not going to chauffeur them around."

Tony confirmed this the day we were at Old Sarum and he returned from a flight with Raymond wrung-out and ready for an early night. He was only just getting used to Raymond's instructing technique - his previous instructor, Mike Duff, is an Army reservist and had been called to the Gulf. Teaching pilots with disabilities requires more than just the usual instructor's tough-guy technique, Raymond says. "You have to be sensitive to people's individual capabilities. You can't do it by the numbers."

This sensitivity obviously works. Jack says he has seen how flying builds students' sense of self-reliance and confidence and this is supported by the letters he has received - from students and their families - in which there are common refrains about a newly found sense of purpose, stimulating challenges and realised dreams. That last is significant because the majority of APT's students haven't turned to flying in a search for something to do - they have harboured life-long ambitions to fly.

Access for all  

Many clubs can offer disabled flying facilities to some degree. Several BDFC members have gained their PPLs using hand control adapters on otherwise standard aircraft. Details of these adapters are available on the BDFC web site and the club will help any flying club in obtaining and using these devices.

This isn't a matter of altruism or political correctness. Flight training organisations are businesses and there's a sound business reason for doing this. If, as a flying club, you market yourself properly, so that people are aware of the facility for disabled flyers, you open up a whole new potential customer base and could recoup any investment very quickly.

Most clubs are aware of the need to provide facilities for people with disabilities, but that shouldn't be limited to ramps and toilets. This access can, and should, extend right the way into the captain's seat in the cockpit.

That's where the real challenges start, of course - the problems that we all face. Ask Tony what he has found most difficult about learning to fly and you won't be surprised by the answer. He casts a miserable glance at the clouds and says: "Beating the weather."