IT'S plane to see -- Karen Bain is a natural in the sky.

She is completely at home plummeting to earth from 10,000 feet as she competes in a skydiving competition in Belgium.

Karen's expertise earned her and her team a gold medal for Great Britain in the European Skydiving Championships.

And for the 31-year-old it was the culmination of four years hard work, during which she has made more than 600 jumps.

The skydiver, from Bolton, is part of the "Optic" team which also includes Derrick Kent from Humberside, Pete Allen and Susan Farquhar, both from West Yorkshire, and video flyer Christian Hinchliffe from Huddersfield.

They only recently formed the four-way formation team but are already proving highly successful.

Karen, who has previously represented Great Britain in Taekwondo, is also part of the team which is current British and Scottish Intermediate Champions.

She has had success in eight-way skydiving competition with Team "International Space Kettle" securing both 2003 and 2004 British Championships.

Karen is based near Loughborough where she works for AstraZeneca as a human resources manager.

The jump was filmed for judging purposes by their camera flyer. The team had to leave the plane together and carry out a complex sequence of in-air formations in freefall before deploying their parachutes.

After taking the gold, Karen said: "I was so proud, both for myself and my team, being presented with the gold medal for Great Britain."