Overall: 24cm (9.5in) x 18cm (7in)
Colour three-quarter length portrait photograph of the Prince of Wales in Royal Air Force uniform with pilot’s wings awarded in August 1971. Signed and dated in the mount ‘Charles 1992’. In easel backed dark green leather frame gilt embossed with the Prince of Wales' feathers by Andrew Soos, London.
King Charles III qualified as a jet pilot at RAF Cranwell, Lincolnshire in 1971 during a four-month training course codenamed Exercise Golden Eagle. The King gave up flying in 1994 following a crash in the Hebrides in which a Queen’s Flight passenger jet was damaged at a cost of £1 million. An RAF inquiry found that the aircraft’s captain had been negligent in allowing him to take the controls. Prince Charles was not blamed because, despite holding the RAF rank of group captain, he was regarded as a passenger who was invited to fly the aircraft.