As we know the nub of the problem is that word
solo. What made the feats of historical famous female aviators great was that they conducted their flights on their own. If they hadn't been solo we may well not know who they were today.
Now in all the press releases before the trip it is stated that it was going to be a solo flight and it was this little fact that made the expedition special. If from the outset it was publicised that she would have another pilot with her and a well resourced support aircraft following behind the jaunt would have hardly merited a mention in specialist aviation press let alone the national media.
Once it was decided to change the terms of the flight in such a significant way TCT and her
PR team should have immediately issued a statement correcting what the objective of the trip was. But there is not a mention of this and of course no corrections were made when the press published incorrect details as they had received no information to the contrary.
This little
PR trick has been perfected by politicians in recent years. I first noticed it with PM T Blair, he would announce some popular new policy and it would be lauded in the press and he would get great acclaim for his dealings with the matter. Then a couple of years later you would realise that he had never carried out the actions he had promised. If the press noticed and questioned why, the politician would simply say that he had been thwarted by the judges or the EU or some other excuse. Meanwhile he had benefited from the good publicity his policy announcement had generated.
Welcome to the modern world based on
PURE SPIN