But He's Far From The Only One

When you're royalty, your every action is held up to public scrutiny (at least, so we hear -- Ed.) As we approach the one-year anniversary since Britain's Prince William landed a military helicopter in his girlfriend's backyard, now comes word the budding search-and-rescue pilot also "overcooked" the engine on a fixed-wing training aircraft last year.

The Daily Mail reports the incident happened during the Prince's 12-week training stint with the Royal Air Force, while shutting down the single Garrett TPE331-12B turbine powering his Short Tucano T1 trainer.

"He flicked the wrong switch on shutdown and overcooked the turbo," recounted Joe Watt, the (now-retired) RAF engineering officer who inspected the aircraft, to the paper. "I think he switched it back on.

"The engine tries to start again when it is stopping," Watt continued, before offering a measured reassurance to the Prince. "He's not the only one. We've had two or three. Better pilots than him have done it."

The incident reportedly resulted in the plane being grounded for approximately a week... though Buckingham Palace denies any damage was done to any plane while the future leader of the British empire trained.

In addition to the Embraer-sourced Tucano, William also trained on Grob 115E light aircraft and a Eurocopter AS350 Squirrel helicopter. By the time he landed a helicopter in Kate Middleton's backyard in April 2008, he'd graduated to flying Chinooks.

FMI: www.raf.mod.uk