A PENSIONER who was forced to give up her dream of flying solo after being diagnosed with health complications is set to take to the skies.

Plane fanatic Faith Tippett, 85, who lived in Lamberts Farm, Earls Colne, for 55 years, first fell in love with small planes at the age of ten.

She had attended the Farnborough Air Show and her father had organised a flight in a de Havilland Dove plane.

Her interest in all things aviation and becoming a pilot was reignited decades later when her late husband, David, gifted her a flight experience for her 60th birthday which led to her having lessons in a Cessna 120.

Faith progressed through the tutorials quickly and before long was being told by instructors to contemplate embarking on her first solo flight.

But when a specialist doctor who carried out a medical on Faith found she had blood pressure problems, she was unable to be get clearance to take-off alone.

As a result, she opted to focus on her improving health but while she was firmly on the ground.

Faith is not one to give up, however, and said: “I have never forgotten that period and never lost my love of small panes and flying.

“I am now 85 and I am, physically speaking, fairly fit. But I am a very pragmatic person and tend to accept these things.”

Although at the top of Faith’s bucket list was a desire to fly in the renowned Spitfire, the budding pilot is now set to take flight in a 1942 Harvard AT-6, after being informed of the similarities between the two planes.

The nostalgia trip, in an aircraft which was used to train pilots during the Second World War, will see Faith don a RAF-style flight suit.

And if she wants to, Faith will even be able take over the controls from the pilot during the aerial navigation.

She said: “I am having an intense, huge feeling of excitement.

“We are planning two shortish flights, as well as flying over the farm where I lived for so many years with my late husband.

“We also sailed in the area, so I am hoping one flight will be able to be over Mersea Island.”

Faith will fly in the Harvard AT-6 on August 5 with Anglian War Birds, taking off from Earls Colne Airfield