The small plane, its interior not much bigger than a car, its checklist completed, starts moving along the runway, always keeping to the yellow straight line.

Its speed accelerates, and then suddenly … you’re in the air, gaining height with every second. Effortlessly, light as a bird.

Take off in a small plane is so much different from the roaring, whooshing take-off of a commercial plane.

In the big plane, in no time at all, one finds oneself above the clouds. But in a small plane, everything keeps its real dimensions: you look at fields, roads, quarries, people not from that great a height. Everything is still recognisable.

This is the Malta you know and yet, soon enough, it becomes a Malta you do not know. One tends to quickly lose one’s bearings as the plane cuts across valleys and roads and flits from one town to another.

Soon enough, we cross over to Maghtab (only later we realise we must have passed over our offices) and the pilot who has taken the plane up and who has explained patiently and meticulously the checklist that must be carried out before every take-off, suddenly turns to you and tells you: “Here, you have control”

I manage to keep the plane on an even keel, as he points out a quarry outside Hondoq ir-Rummien and tells me to point the plane in that direction. On my left, I glimpse Salina Bay, then St Paul’s Islands and soon we are out of the fishtail end of Malta, the Ahrax Point. Comino looks larger, more savage and craggy but soon we being buffeted the upwind currents from the cliffs between Hondoq and the quarry.

By now the tension has eased, as Chris, the pilot, tells me I am doing well. Still the control lever (much like a car gear lever, only it is between my legs rather than next to them) tends to get me to over-compensate.

Ramla l-Hamra passes by, then Marsalforn and then the beauty that is Gozo’s northernmost tip with its cliffs all the way to Xlendi and beyond.

In my headphones I hear the airport control tower telling plane after plane they can take off, but I never see any plane. Chris Cauchi tells me to head further out until we are level with the Dingli Radar ‘golf ball’.

Then he takes over as we cross over Malta and turn above Hamrun, my birthplace, as we start to descend over the Grand Harbour’s inner reaches till we land, ever so simply, on the same runway we took off from, just some 40 minutes before.

My photographer and I were the guests of Diamond Flight Training School, one of the four flying schools established in Malta (with a fifth in the offing). Diamond opened in May last year when its founders (there have been some changes since then) estimated there was room in the marketplace for a new flying school.

Diamond bought two new planes, Diamond planes, well equipped with the latest technology which makes learning flying an easier experience and more exhilarating at the same time.

Its offices and classes are, along with other schools, in the old building next to the Security Gate near the old Lufthansa Technik hangar.

Like all other flying schools, Diamond opened offering Private Pilot Licence training but intends to open for Commercial Pilot Licence training sometime in the near future, possibly next year. For the moment, any Maltese student who wants to get a CPL has to go abroad to train for it.

Anybody can learn to fly a plane, and the experience is out of this world. Diamond takes students as young as 14 or 15, but they can only fly solo at age 16. In fact, some parents with very keen children are starting them off at 15 or thereabouts so that flying solo might be their 16th birthday present.

After that, they can only get the PPL licence at age 17, so they have to continue training. If they then want to do a CPL, they will have to wait until they are 18.

Obtaining a PPL usually takes about a year, although those who want to do it in the shortest time possible, can do it in as little as six to eight weeks.

Malta’s geographic location, its balmy weather and its clear skies and sunlight make it particularly attractive for people coming from northern Europe with shorter daytime hours and usually cloudy skies and rain.

There is then an additional advantage: foreign students can come to Malta to learn both the English language and learning to fly a plane. There is a specific reason. One of the new rules regulating PPL says that would-be pilots have to learn English, not the plane-English used by non-English speakers, but real English. Not many flying schools on the continent are equipped to do so. Diamond Flight Training has thus teamed up with some very reputable English language schools to offer this combined study plan.

The students can stay either at one of the schools’ residential quarters or other accommodation near the airport.

Not all the PPL training is done in Malta: students have to go to Sicily for the navigational part since Malta is too tiny for them to navigate as they have to fly between two airports and back.

Training is entirely at the hours most convenient for the student, the only proviso being they can only use the school computer learning machines. Although, as I said earlier, a PPL licence can be obtained in six to eight weeks, most students take from six months to two years to complete a PPL. That way, unless they are very rich, they can keep up with the payment structure while they study and work at their daytime jobs.

Diamond Flight Training is more expensive than other flying schools because new planes are used. Even so, in the end, the prices charged by Diamond are only some 10 per cent dearer than other schools for while the others charge from the moment the engines are switched on till they are switched off, Diamond charges only from take-off to landing, plus a fixed period of 12 minutes on the ground for taxiing. Sometimes you get a 20-minute and even a 30-minute delay because of airport traffic, which Diamond does not charge extra for the additional time, but the others do.

Diamond’s planes have other uses too. They can be used to help pilots keep their licences current and valid. They can also help PPL pilots studying for CPL to build the mandatory hours of flying planes.

Obviously, the Diamond planes are also available for pleasure flying not just around Malta but also to the Continent – they can fly to Rome without stopping for refuelling. Diamond offers 30- or 60-minute trial lessons when one would be able to enjoy the thrills of flying and at the same time enjoy the very beautiful scenery of the Maltese Islands. Trial flights also make an ideal birthday or other gift.

Diamond Flight Training can also help pilots convert their non-JAA ICAO licence to a JAA through special courses held for this purpose. Pilots who want to take up this course must have a valid ICAO licence and have at least 100 flying hours. They are also required to pass two exams, Air Law and Human Performance, and finally a Flight Test.

As stated earlier, Diamond Flight Training Malta owns its own Diamond DA 20-Cl and DA 40 TDI planes. Both aircraft are modern aircraft, which are considered ideal for training and have been chosen by major training schools around the world.

The Diamond DA40 is also equipped with a Garmin 1000 glass cockpit, FADEC single lever engine controls and is fully IFR equipped and certified.

Students will be able to convert from the DA20 plane to the DA40 plane after the initial part of their training is successfully completed.

Training on the DA 40 plane helps students who intend to progress to commercial flight training due to the glass cockpit configuration. Both the DA 20 and the DA 40 have proved to be very reliable and safe aircraft for flight training.

Jeremy Tan, Diamond Malta’s chief flight instructor, added that contrary to popular perception, there is no glut of pilots at present. On the contrary, within a short time, there will be a huge need of pilots as many experienced pilots are coming up for retirement and need to be replaced.