To ‘quote’ our new King from his ‘columns’ in Private Eye - ‘Heir of Sorrows’ etc – ‘it really is appalling’ that in the second decade of the 21st Century the ignorance of the Typhoon Cpl and the female ATC Officer with regard to female aircrew is still prevalent.
One of the best of the ‘Two-Winged Master Race’ when I was a ‘directional consultant’ on the mighty Wessex (and that was in the late 90’s) was from the distaff side - S** A****n (as was)! She was competent, confident and had a good pair of hands. However, flying back from an exercise on the west coast of Scotland there was a great example of how the general public viewed ‘the laydees’ in the RAF even then.
It was a dark and dirty night, and I’m not sure if S**, the Crewman - WO A***** O****** - and I were the sacrificial lambs, but we were sent to schneeble down the Scottish west coast from Plockton to Ald on goggles. After a few, ahem, excursions from S&L flight at 1000’ amsl, we realised that not only was S** uncomfortable with the conditions, but the weather had deteriorated below limits, so we diverted to the fishing village of Mallaig and landed in the car park by the harbour.
After we had secured the cab (with a combination of the local police and the groundcrew we had down the back) we repaired to the local hotel, where, after ringing the DetCo back in Plockton to advise them to stay put for the night, we booked some rooms, and agreed to meet in the bar for a few large sharpeners and a debrief!!
Now anyone who knew/knows S** will realise that in civvys she looks nothing like a military pilot!! So, after a few G&Ts and a chat about the events of the transit, we wanted to order some food from the owner, a large, jolly, ‘rubicund’ guy with a somewhat unintelligible ‘westy’ accent…imagine a less than sober Rab C Nesbitt talking at you. So the conversation went something like this:
Mine Host: So you’ll be the guys from the helicopter, will you?
Me: Yes, that’ll be us!
Mine Host: That great! So what does the girly do then! Does she make the teas?!?
Me: Nope, she’s the Pilot.
Mine Host: Ach, away with you. A wee slip of a lassie like that! You’re kidding me. Nah, she must make the teas!!!
And off he went genuinely thinking that we were winding him up, and S** was actually a ‘Trolly Dolly’!!! I’d like to think that things have changed markedly in the intervening 25 years or so, but given the views of our errant Cpl and ATC Officer, apparently not!
That was also the same night that we ‘bought’ (for a pint of beer) a very large bag of Queen Scallops off a fisherman from Cookstown, Co Tyrone!!! And if anyone knows Cookstown you’ll realise that it hasn’t got a natural supply of ‘horny-handed sons of the sea’!!! But that’s another story altogether!!