Keeping up with the Vinnie Joneses

In his playing days with Wimbledon, Leeds and Sheffield United, he was renowned as something of a footballing hardman.

Now Vinnie Jones has turned to flying helicopters, despite a conviction for air rage after threatening to kill a fellow passenger while drunk.

The star of gangster films Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch is pictured at the controls of a Robinson R22 training helicopter in the skies above Elstree Aerodrome, in Hertfordshire.

Jones, 40, who lives in nearby Tring, spent his hourlong lesson circling the airfield-This latest image of Jones is a world apart from the man who attacked a fellow passenger in the first-class bar on a Virgin Atlantic flight from Heathrow to Tokyo in June 2002.

The actor escaped a prison sentence but was given 80 hours community service and fined £500.

He was also vilified by pilots' union Balpa for setting a bad example to other passengers and lost a lucrative contract for advertising Bacardi.