Who is The Flying Reporter?
Jon Hunt is private pilot and former BBC TV news reporter
I started uploading flying videos on YouTube in 2014, as a way to share my travels and adventures with my friends and family. There was no post-production, little thought and the videos were long and somewhat boring. I had been watching YouTube pilots from the USA and Canada and while the content was great, I realised there was also a market for content tailored to a UK audience so I put my 30 year broadcasting experience to good use.
My original vision for the channel was to combine my journalistic skill and my private pilot license to go on journeys exploring sights and places of note, as well as interviewing interesting people who would join me in the cockpit of my PA28 share-o-plane.
Until 2021 this was hard to achieve, because I was working as a BBC TV news reporter and parenting a lively adopted child. My son is still going strong I’m pleased to say, but in May 2021 I left the BBC after 30 years. This means I have more time to produce general aviation YouTube content and hopefully fulfil my ambition.
I started my career in BBC local radio in the late 80s after spinning disks on Chichester Hospital Radio as a teenager. I transferred into BBC regional TV in 2001. From 2007 I worked for approximately three years producing and directing features for the BBC Watchdog and Rogue Traders programmes, before returning back to regional TV news as a video journalist. There I was researching, writing, filming, editing and presenting the news, both live and in pre-recorded reports.
I qualified as a private pilot in June 2013 after about 18 months practical training and theoretical study. I trained in a Cessna 152 two-seater plane flying from Biggin Hill Airport, near London. I have since obtained a restricted instrument rating, night rating, have completed a tailwheel conversion and as of November 2021 become a Class Rating Instructor.
I like to tour the UK and Europe. Recent trips have taken me across the UK and into France, Italy, Croatia, Austria and Germany.
My husband and I are adoptive parents to a 14 year old boy.