The Scholarship Kids, by Robert Gentle

When Robert and Michael, a pair of starry-eyed twins see a Boeing 707 at an airport in the mid-1960s, it’s love at first sight. But who's going to one day pay for their dream to work in aviation? This is apartheid South Africa. Coloured boys can't eat alongside white people, let alone jet off to Paris and study aeronautical engineering! In high school they discover an unlikely aptitude for French. Armed with scholarships, they head off to Paris and their once ordinary lives are changed forever.