IT was more than half a century ago when a 20-year-old Kevin Crumplin, an air cadet at the time, first flew a Tiger Moth plane at Dartmouth Royal Naval College.

That first flight was to take him on an incredible journey where now, aged 77, he spends every day in an aircraft hangar restoring Tiger Moth planes and flying high in the sky above the Dorset landscape.

Footage Andrew Bruce Media 

And now, documentary film-maker Andy Bruce, from Blandford Forum, has captured Kevin's interesting and unique passion from a bird's eye view in a short film after bumping into the enthusiast on the airfield one day.

Kevin said: "It's always a bit difficult to explain why someone becomes passionate about something.

"It was the first aeroplane I ever flew in 1960, the Tiger Moth. It was basic, iconic and a challenge to fly and it's all those things that made me admire them. It's a delightful plane."

Kevin spends up to 60 hours a week restoring Tiger Moth planes at Henstridge Airfield in north Dorset and at a workshop at his home in Wells. The aircrafts were used by the military in the 1930s but have long since been retired with most failing into disrepair.

But aircraft isn't the first mode of transport Kevin has worked on.

He said: "I built my own sailing boat. Restoring is really very similar so it was a continuation. I built the first boat in the 1970s and then decided to go back to flying.

"On average, it takes about a year to rebuild a Tiger Moth and about 1500 to 2000 hours. Once you've started one and you know it, you're very happy to go on to the next one and the next one.

"There's five that I've done over a period of four years."

The engines of the planes have to be sent off to a licensed engineering company to be restored while Kevin restores the rest of the aircrafts. The biggest obstacle he faces is sourcing certified spare parts for the planes.

"I do about 99 per cent of the work myself - only when lifting the wings and assembling do I have someone to help."

Passionate about his work, and the planes he restored with his own bare hands, Kevin wanted to keep them and needed to find a way to 'hangarage' the planes and to fund the upkeep of the fleet.

"The way I thought to keep the aircraft I was restoring was to create a flying school."

And so Tiger Moth Training was born. From his simple idea, a unique school was formed for people to fly Tiger Moths in formation and take to the sky. Kevin now runs the school with Annabelle Burroughes and Clive Davidson teaching people how to fly the 80 year old planes.

With a small fleet of five planes, the training school has proved successful with people flying in from all over the world for the rare opportunity to fly the iconic planes.

Kevin said: "You've got a unique set of aircrafts because nowhere else do you have Tiger Moths looking exactly the same, all flying in formation - you just don't see that in the country.

"I fly all the time. I don't think the novelty will ever wear off.

"We have people come from America, Sweden, Germany, Italy and France - from all over the world. It's a specialist school."

The people who come to train can be anyone from experienced pilots or absolute beginners.

"This is a 30s aeroplane and everything is pretty basic and so they are a challenge to fly, but if you fly them properly they are a joy to fly."

It's not hard to understand then why Kevin's passion caught the attention of filmmaker Andy Bruce.

Running a filmmaking company in Dorset - Overhead Pictures, Andy was at Henstridge Airfield one day, where his father has a plane too, and heard about Kevin's work.

The short film perfectly captures the essence of Kevin's passion.

Andy said: "He just spends so much time building these aeroplanes. It was such an interesting place to be and see him working on it as a filmmaker I thought I would do a piece about him.

"You can see his passion comes from a love of flying and flying in these aeroplanes particularly that he trained on.

He added: "It is very rare to see these biplanes in action let alone identical aircraft flying in formation but with a lot of hard work and some friendly helping hands Kevin and his team are able to display around the country.

"We had the opportunity to talk to Kevin and fly with him - you get a gust of wind and it blows them all over the place! We were only two metres wing to wing from the next plane! But I trusted them completely - it was unforgettable."

Kevin has no plans to retire from restoring anytime soon, and why would he when he is doing something that he loves day in day out.

The saying 'choose a job you love and you'll never work another day' couldn't ring more true for the Tiger Moth enthusiast.

Kevin said: "I start at 6.30am and work until lunchtime, then I go home for lunch and continue working from my workshop there. I will do this until they carry me out in a wooden box."

To watch the documentary, visit dorsetecho.co.uk and bournemouthecho.co.uk and to find out more about the planes and the Tiger Moth Training school, visit tigermothtraining.co.uk