T C-T could have been a force for good within UK GA. She is forceful and presents well, and has the ability to rouse the media and garner publicity. Forget the feminist issue, thousands of women fly every day, either for pleasure or work. But to have had her involved in the LAA Young Eagles programme, or any of the schemes from HCAP and I doubt there'd be a school child in Britain who wouldn't have been exposed to general aviation and all it's possibilities. (and I imply absolutely no criticism of the LAA team who already work bloody hard on and donate so much to the Young Eagles scheme)
Instead she chose to follow a long out of date agenda, attacked the very organisation that does so much for GA and led a lot of people right up the garden path, and has brought the LAA into disrepute in doing so. I owe a huge debt to PFA/LAA members who helped me into the career I have enjoyed so much, people who gave me their time, advice, flying hours and the occasional arm around the shoulder. I certainly wouldn't have made it without all of them.
Reading her statement on the LAA website I believe this is a long way from over. Rumour has it she had a barrister with her yesterday, I fully expect her to heed the advice of her "friends" and go legal, and the LAA will have lost the talent she could have brought to it if she had really thought things through in the first place, a stack of money to lawyers, and had it's reputation trashed in the press, because tomorrow's chip wrappings do stick in the minds of people.
T C-T, you have been monumentally daft. If you had used your talents and energies for the good of young people and GA you would have had plenty of highly deserved, respected awards and the immense satisfaction of a job very well done. Instead this squalid fight will go on, with everybody losing. And that really saddens me.
SND