The royals and the military have long been entwined. While most royals hold honorary military titles and honours, many of them also undergo specialty training and active duty. Most recently, Denmark’s Prince Christian was snapped in a soon-to-be-retired F-16 fighter jet and our own Princess Kate got behind the yoke of a typhoon. Here are all the royals who have had their very own Top Gun moment in flight simulators, helicopters and fighter jets.
© Andrew Parsons / Kensington PalaceThe Princess of Wales
The Princess of Wales had her very own Top Gun moment during a visit to RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire. It marked her first visit to the base since becoming Royal Honorary Air Commodore in August 2023. There, she sat in the pilot’s seat of the Typhoon Future Synthetic Training Facility.
Remarkably, she performed a loop the loop, which is hardly surprising when you remember that her paternal grandfather, Peter Middleton, was an RAF fighter pilot who served in World War II.
During the trip, she revealed that her youngest son Louis is keen to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps and become a fighter pilot, but added: “I’m going to tell them (her children) it takes eight years and a lot of hard work.”
© Getty ImagesKing Charles
The King, as Sovereign, is Head of the Armed Forces. His Majesty is a military veteran himself, having trained and served in both the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force.
He first flew in a de Havilland Chipmunk aircraft during his second year at Cambridge University in the late 1960s, and made his first solo flight in January 1969.
After clocking over 90 hours of flying time, King Charles officially earned his wings in August 1971. In the British military, the concept of “earning wings” is one of the highest recognitions of undergoing speciality or difficult aviation training.
Although he ended up having a career in the Navy, he put his flying skills to use by qualifying as a helicopter pilot in 1974.
© Getty ImagesPrince Harry
Prince Harry was a part of the Army Air Corps (AAC), which is the British Army’s combat aviation arm. During his ten-year military career, the Duke of Sussex completed two tours of Afghanistan. Then, in 2009, after four years of service, he began his pilot training and eventually his Apache training course.
In his 2023 memoir, Spare, Harry spoke explicitly about his time as a fighter pilot: “Day by day the Apache felt less alien,” he wrote, “and some days it even felt good. I learned to be alone in there, to think alone, function alone. I learned to communicate with this big, fast, nasty, beautiful beast, to speak its language, to listen when it talked. I learned to perform one set of skills with my hands, while doing another with my feet. I learned to appreciate how phenomenal this machine was: unthinkably heavy, yet capable of ballet-like suppleness.The most technologically complex helicopter in the world, and also the most nimble. I could see why only a handful of people on earth knew how to fly Apaches, and why it cost millions of dollars to train each of those people.”
© Getty ImagesPrince William
In 2009, Prince William began his training as a search and rescue pilot, and after passing his exams with the Royal Air Force, he joined RAF Valley in Anglesey in September 2010. His seven years of military service saw him deployed to the Falkland Islands.
After leaving the Armed Forces in 2015, William then retrained to become an air ambulance pilot, working with East Anglian Air Ambulance for two years. The Prince took up official royal duties full-time in July 2017, as he and Kate moved their family from Norfolk to Kensington Palace in London.
© Europa Press via Getty ImagesPrincess Leonor
Princess Leonor had her own Top Gun moment at the General Air Academy in San Javier. where she has begun training. The Spanish royal, 19, has marked the start of her final year of her military training as a future captain general of the Armed Forces when she accedes to the throne.
Leonor is set to begin her flying lessons on the ground before she progresses to the air, HELLO!‘s sister publication, HOLA! reports. The princess completed her naval training after spending her first year with the General Military Academy in Zaragoza.
© KongehusetPrince Christian
19-year-old Prince Christian of Denmark enrolled in military training with the Gardehusarregimentet (Guard Hussar Regiment) at the Antvorskov barracks in Slagelse in February. Earlier this year, he took part in an F-16 flying experience as a part of his military training. “It’s incredible what that plane can do,” he said, still excited from the flight.
He’ll be following in the footsteps of his father, King Frederik, who spent much of his early career in the military. Frederik served in the infantry regiment of the Royal Life Guards and the Royal Frogmen Corps, an elite special forces unit within the Danish Navy.