{"id":502099,"date":"2025-10-15T18:09:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/502099\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T18:09:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:09:10","slug":"prince-william-misses-glory-days-of-search-and-rescue-pilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/502099\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince William misses &#8216;glory days&#8217; of search-and-rescue pilot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"byline\">\n<p>        15 October 2025\n    <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/prince-william\/\" class=\"exposure-link \" data-linktrack=\"LinkTracker,articleExposure,prince-william\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Prince William<\/a> misses the &#8220;glory days&#8221; of being a search-and-rescue pilot.<\/p>\n<p>                            <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"main-image\" class=\"img-responsive thumbnail landscape img-stretch\" itemprop=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/prince-william-has-vowed-to-make-change-aW1hZ2VzMS8yMDIzLzEx.jpg\" alt=\"Prince William misses his RAF days\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"image-caption landscape\">Prince William misses his RAF days<\/p>\n<p>The Prince of Wales served with the RAF from 2009 until 2013 before flying  with the East Anglian Air Ambulance from March 2015 until July 2017 and at a joint engagement with his &#8220;dear friend&#8221; and fellow helicopter pilot the Crown Prince of Jordan, Al Hussein bin Abdullah II, at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire on Wednesday (15.10.25), William looked back on his military days with great fondness.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Daily Telegraph, he said: \u201cI left and went straight into the Air Ambulance afterwards and did three years or so there and\u2026 it sort of merged into one big flying trip. I miss the search and rescue days, the glory days.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>The prince told how he loved hearing the sound of the Sea King helicopter flying during US Premident Donald Trump&#8217;s state visit last month.<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cSeven aircraft were flying over and Sea King comes in and I was like \u2018there she is\u2019 \u2013 that noise went straight to my heart, it was a great sound.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nThe 43-year-old royal still enjoys flying when he can and admitted piloting an aircraft is his &#8220;happy place&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>\nAsked whether he still flies, he said: \u201cI do still fly \u2013 I keep my hours going because, when you learn that skill set, you just don\u2019t want it to go. I\u2019ve definitely lost a lot of the skills \u0399 had, but I like to just keep on top of flying and keep doing it. It\u2019s my happy place when I\u2019m flying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\nDuring their visit, the princes met trainee aircrew and staff from No. 28 (AC) Sqn and No. 22 Sqn &#8211; with whom William served during his time at RAF Valley in Anglesey, North Wales &#8211; and heled engineers work on the main rotorhead of a Chinook aircraft, with the British prince joking someone would come along to &#8220;check&#8221; his counterpart&#8217;s work.<\/p>\n<p>\nThey then attended a private meeting with RAF personnel.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe two princes flew to the engagement by helicopter from Windsor Castle, with Kensington Palace stating it highlighted their &#8220;strong relationship&#8221; and mutual respect for the Armed Forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"15 October 2025 Prince William misses the &#8220;glory days&#8221; of being a search-and-rescue pilot. Prince William misses his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[164607,19660,2832,532,5105,7710,519,448],"class_list":{"0":"post-502099","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-crown-prince-of-jordan","9":"tag-prince-hussein","10":"tag-prince-of-wales","11":"tag-prince-william","12":"tag-royal","13":"tag-royal-families","14":"tag-royal-family","15":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115379527546252226","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}