Inside RAF Benson, we are being directed to our parking space by Squadron Leader Mike Neil, who has chosen to sprint there ahead of our car. He is being followed by our work experience lad, Sam, who has chosen to play a version of Follow The (Squadron) Leader.

Mike NeilMike is 68 years old and sprightly, as light on his feet as his touch was as a pilot when he flew Chipmunks, Tiger Moths, Oxfords, Meteors and Vampires.

Sam is powerfully built, 15 years old and shuffles along like a young bear in search of honey. By the time we reach the parking space, it is Sam, not Mike, who is breathing harder.

Mike Neil has had a career with the Royal Air Force that has spanned half a century and from which he officially retired this week. Expecting him to quit flying would be akin to expecting an eagle to ground itself voluntarily.

"As long as I pass my medical, I'll continue as a pilot," he says, smiling.

Mike Neil was born just too late to be one of 'The Few', although there can be no denying that he's one of the few pilots who still holds an A1 category Flying Instructor qualification on the threshold of his eighth decade.

Until today, he served in the RAF Volunteer Reserve with No. 6 Air Experience Flight at RAF Benson after leaving the regular service in 1993. His 'dining out', or 'leaving do' in civilian terms, was, by all accounts, a night to remember. It was attended by his friends and colleagues, including members of the ex-Luftwaffe fighter pilots' association. Mike is an honourary member of the organisation, Die Gemeinschalt die Jagdflieger.

Before the collapse of Communism, he risked earning himself a one-way ticket to a gulag by flying Chipmunk aircraft fitted with cameras over the Russian sector of Berlin.

"I was OC Operations and pilots could maintain their flying pay by making the effort to fly, and with the Chipmunk, you could see a lot from the air - tanks, radar equipment, you name it," he recalls.

"The Russians never knew what we were getting up to - if they had done, we'd have been taking a very long course in Russian."

His personal contrubution to the Cold War has been largely unsung, but suffice to say the Chipmunk he flew in those days in now displayed in the Allied Forces Museum in Berlin, with the name Mike Neil painted on its side.

Mike comes from Bristol and has been flying since he was 17.

"I have a tremendous loyalty to the RAF but it is flying that has always inspired me," he admits. "I mean, when I was 19, I was finishing my jet training - flying aircraft at 550mph - it was just like a dream, really. If you want a fast-track career in the service, it's not all about flying, but..."

He shrugs, with the comfortable eloquence of a man who knows fast-track careers come a slow second to the joy of being in the air.

He met Myra, his wife of 41 years, on a Lincolnshire campsite, despite both of them having been in Germany at the same time - Mike with the RAF and Myra as a school teacher. The couple have three children.

He picked up an MBE in the seventies during his time as the official RAF Chipmunk aerobatic display pilot. His party piece consisted of spectacular aerobatics during the Queens Birthday Parade within the Berlin Olympic Stadium.

Had he ever been scared up there? He would, you sense, rather loop the loop over this particular question, but when pressed, admits, "I've been afraid, yes. For sure. In Belgium once, I was taking part in an exercise which involved 71 other aircraft. I was flying a Vampire fitted with drop tanks, which made it capable of long range attack. This was over Rhiems and we were staging a mock attack and flying at a very low level. Suddenly, a flock of birds shot up from the trees below and shattered my windscreen - there were holes in the wing and the fuel tanks burst, with all these other aircraft around me. It was pretty hairy."

So, one assumes, was the forced landing he was once compelled to make in a Tiger Moth after its engine failed and he came down in the Mendip Hills.

He laughs aloud as he recalls: "I always felt I was a fighter pilot and I flew like one - which wasn't always with my crew's approval, especially when I was flying Hastings, which were a bit like flying a double-decker bus!"

Ask him if such a thing as a 'natural' pilot exists and he says: "Yes, I think so. You become like part of the aircraft, you can feel it.

"When I was a youngster, I regretted not being old enough to fight in the Battle of Britain, but I don't now, not now I'm more, er, mature," he says, smiling.

He assisted in the conversion to the new Grob Tutor aircraft that now equip the Air Experience Flights and University Air Squadrons at RAF Benson. Colleagues describe Mike Neil as unique and "an absolute one-off".

But after 50 years in that distinctive uniform of his beloved RAF, there are perhaps two words which describe him best:

True Blue.