About Us
Mark Leavesley started model flying at the age of 7. He has flown in many jet and helicopter competitions all his life, coming second at the World Jet Masters in Austria in 1999. He also scored the highest flight score at the whole world championships winning him a special trophy. He started hangliding in 1989 at the Peak school of hangliding with Paul Willis and Allen Hethrington, both are fantastic instructors. After a year he started to learn to paraglide. Since then he has clocked up thousands of hours on many aircraft types, Mark is also the chief flying instructor for the British Model Association and the chief flying instructor for BHPA/LEAVESLEY AVIATION'S AIR EXPERENCE SCHOOL.
Mike Cherry and Mark Leavesley with the Mercury powered F-15 and the second place trophy. Mark also had the highest flight score in Team Scale.
In 2003 Mark started thinking about competing so he started flying a lot with Kai Coleman, John Kennedy and Neil Roberts who all helped him in many different ways.
This picture was taken at the 2006 British Nationals in Ager, Spain. Mark was picking up 2nd place for serial class paraglider, he also won rookie of the year and came 5th overall.
In 2007 he had the great honour of flying for Great Briton in the Bleriot Cup and won with team GB. He was then asked to fly at the world paragliding championships as an air Marshal and camera ship, a great honour indeed.
The British Squad selected for training in 2007 is as follows : Adrian Thomas, Bruce Goldsmith, Craig Morgan, Fiona Macaskill, Innes Powell, John Ellison, Kai Coleman, Louise Burnham, Mark Leavesley, Mark Watts, Nia Harland, Nicky Moss, Steve Ham, Steve Nash and Russell Ogden.
Many of the squad are intending to enter the Paragliding World Cup tour, the highest competition circuit in the world. It is hoped that Bruce Goldsmith and Russell Ogden will be mentoring our top pilots during the World Cup events in preparation for the Europeans in 2008.
In 2010 Mark decided to give up competing for a bit to concentrate on guiding and passing on his skills to others. Now living and working 7 days a week guiding in the lovely Shropshire hills with his wife Sian and two children Chloe and Olivia, life is coming on a treat with many happy customers.
In January 2011 Mark became a (C.F.I) Chief flying instructor and also registered Leavesley Aviation with the BHPA as a school. Thank's to all the many pilots that pushed me in this direction and a massive thank you to Sian for putting up with me over the years and to Alan Clark my longest paragliding mate and a true friend. He is also as mad about flying as I am and between us this new direction of Leavesley Aviation should be a good one for all that come along with us.
Mark's Sponsors have been
GIN GLIDERS
GRADENT PARAGLIDERS
AVA SPORT
UK AIRSPORTS
AIRCROSS PARAGLIDERS
BLU-EYES EYEWEAR
OZONE GLIDERSÀger Competition Report, 26 August to 01 September 2006
Results
1 Xevi Bonet ESP 4691 : Gin Boomerang 4
2 Bruce Goldsmith GBR 4681 : Airwave Magic FR
3 Mark Watts GBR 4576 : Gradient Avax SR74 Andre Rainsford ZAF : Gin Boomerang 4
5 Miquel Martinez ESP : Axispara Mercury
6 Adrian Thomas GBR : Airwave Magic FR
7 Craig Morgan GBR : Aircross Ultima3
8 Jose-Manual Reina Lagos ESP : Axispara Mercury
9 Innes Powell GBR : Advance Omega 6 1st Serial class
10 Yann Martail FRA : Niviuk Icepeak12 Mark Leavesley GBR : Gin Boomerang Sport 2nd Serial class
36 Nicky Moss GBR : Axispara Venus 1st woman
41 Nia Harland GBR : Advance Sigma 5 1st Sports class, 2nd woman
43 Alan Davis GBR : Gradient Aspen 2nd Sports ClassBritish Open Championship 2007 FRANCE
1 OGDEN, Russell (Ozone) 187 2 ETHERINGTON, Steve (Claire Etherington) 144 3 HAYMAN, Mark (www.chaletchardons.com) 16 4 THOMAS, Adrian (Airwave) 1 5 ROBERTS, Neil (Gradient Snowdon Gliders) 43 6 WATTS, Mark (Axispara UK) 3 7 POWELL, Innes (Southwest Paragliding) 7 8 HAM, Steve (flypiedrahtia.com) 2 9 CHAMBERS, Jon 219 10 LEAVESLEY, Mark (Leavesleyaviation / gin boomerand 5)
BRITISH CHAMIPONSHIPS 2007 SPAIN
1 HAYMAN, Mark (www.chaletchardons.com/O 16 2 ETHERINGTON, Steve (Para Excellence) 144 3 CHAMBERS, Jon 219 4 POWELL, Innes 7 5 COLEMAN, Kai (Axis UK) 4 6 COLTMAN, Alex 13 7 MORGAN, Craig (Ozone/South West Paraglid 9 8 HAM, Steve (Flypiedrahtia) 2 9 OGDEN, Russell (Ozone) 187 10 THOMAS, Adrian (Airwave) 1 11 LEAVESLEY, Mark (Leavesleyaviation / Gin Boomerang 5)
Chief Flying Instructor
British Model Flying Assocation
Mark's sponsors have been: AVON COSMETICS-FUTABA-JR RADIO-SANWA-RIPMAX-PERKINS-IRVINE-CRISS FOSS-AMT-SIMJET-JPX-WREN-BEN BUCKLE-CAMBRIAN MODELS-BVM-SPIDER JETS-AVONDS-AVIATION DESIGN-YELLOW AIRCRAFT-MUTIPLEX-GRUPNER-OS-WEBRA-COTSWOLD-KALT HELICOPTORS-HIROBO HELICOPTORS-SCLUTER HELICOPTORS-MFA HELICOPTORS-HEIM HELICOPTORS.
Competitions: from way back in the early 70's too 2004 when it all stopped due to the paragliding business Mark won the brits, limbo champ, spin champ, climb glide record, speed record, best scale flight, highest flight score, won helicoptor hirobo cup, won drag race 3 times, euro cup 3 times, vice world champion, highest flight score in the world champs masters, florida champs most spectaculer flight and won best scale flight, jets over pampa won 3 times, won st athens jets 2 times, won british champs display line.
