The LAA award is not about solo, it's about a feat of navigation.
This is the line being used by a number of people in the LAA who, understandably, want to get rid of this issue and move on. However, looking at the media coverage, the BiaB website and Facebook entries at the time, it was ALL about a solo flight.
I'll put money on it that every member of the award team believed, as did everyone else, that she was flying solo.
It is apparent from media coverage at the time that nobody even thought to say, 'Are you doing this solo?' quite simply because the background so obviously gave the impression she was - and of course, everyone believed this was the whole premise of the trip because T C-T kept banging on about 'retracing Lady Mary Heath's solo journey'.
Fast forward to today. Would the award team
really give an award, with such a high achievement bar, to someone doing a tour of Africa with navigation equipment, a second pilot and a back-up crew doing all the planning?