Lee's mum Joyce has been running ground operations since he took over and is a qualified firefighter, first aider and radio controller.

She is responsible for many things including assessing the state of the grass runway and talking down aircraft in difficulties which may radio in to ask for a landing.

Lee's businessman father Robert works in Boston but does the school's accounts in his spare time.

Lee says his wife Frances, pilot and secondary school physics teacher, "came with the school."

They met when he returned to the airfield to do his commercial training.

She had taken over his refuelling job and like him was learning to fly.

Last summer the couple took their three-year-old Madeline for a day on the beach in Skegness – by air.

He said of his wife: "Frances has a terrific natural aptitude for flying. However much you want to fly, if you don't have the aptitude you won't get there.

"It's nothing to do with how clever you are, it's having the feel for it."

Madelaine, whose third birthday was on New Year's Eve, surprised the family recently when she announced she no longer wants to be a pilot when she grows up.

She is currently toying with becoming a ballerina instead.