Hours Flown 7,000 Qualifications CAA/JAR Examiner & ATPL Position Lead Pilot Favourite Display Liverpool Clipper Race display Interests Teaching SCUBA diving and skydiving

Jez Hopkinson is the owner of the Yakovlevs Display Team and has lead the team for an entire decade! He first set up the Yakovlevs  in 1999, after buying a Yak 52. He then founded the European Yak Club, which quickly grew to include hundreds of members from all over Europe. He says the Yakovlevs was a natural next step to take. 

Jez is also an CAA/JAR Examiner and has run his own aerobatic flying school; now he is very involved with the Air Display world on a formal basis, checking show pilots competency as part of his role as a Display Authorisation Evaluator. 

When he is not busy examining or running the team, he likes to spend his free time skydiving, snow skiing and scuba diving, but his real passion is actually cooking, with a glass of good wine in his hand.