Prince William celebrates qualifying as air ambulance pilot on royal trip to Japan
PRINCE William has qualified as an air ambulance pilot and will take to the skies this summer, Kensington Palace has confirmed.
Soon after the 32-year-old's plane touched down in Japan - where he begins a six-day royal tour of the Far East - it was announced that William had completed the last of his exams to earn his Air Transport Pilot Licence.
He is now ready to begin full-time work with the East Anglian Air Ambulance crew, which he will combine with his ongoing royal duties and family life.
The Prince, a former RAF search and rescue helicopter pilot, has been revising since September in order to pass 14 exams that ranged from meteorology to air law.
However, before he starts flying patients, William will need to undergo job-specific training before starting work in the summer.
The prince will be employed by Bond Air Services, which runs a number of air ambulance and police aviation operations, and will join the company when he returns from his six-day trip to Japan and China.
He will work as close to full time as possible, covering shifts for the Cambridge and Norwich based team, and his salary will be donated to charity.
From today, William will spend the next six days in Asia, which will see him meet him meet communities that survived the devastating 2011 Boxing Day tsunami, and visit Beijing's Forbidden City.
In Shanghai he will launch the three-day Great Festival of Creativity.
He will also visit a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery where British soldiers who died in the Pacific campaign in the Second World War are buried.
William's first stop was Tokyo, where he was given a guided boat tour of some of the Japanese capital's landmarks including the 2020 Olympic Games site and the Rainbow Bridge.
He is not being accompanied by his wife Kate, who is due to give birth to the couple's second child in April.
