Inspiring Pilots
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Inspiring Pilots
Buried in another thread in the Private Flying forum there are loads anecdotes about pilots who have achieved amazing things, and various other threads are dedicated to a particular pilot/event. I love reading stories about the accomplishments of others and the little tales that people share about the pilots who have inspired them.
So I’m attempting to establish a sort of repository for these stories, to make a place for people to come if they are looking for a bit of motivation or just a good read. I hope that others are interested in participating, and that we can keep the thread positive (i.e. no negative comparisons between pilots…).
Jay Sata shared a lovely piece about Mary Ellis in another thread, and I’ve copied it below to get started. Looking forward to seeing what others can bring to the thread – it could be about a well-known aviator or maybe about a private pilot, instructor or colleague who you have fond/inspirational memories about (though please respect privacy).
Aside from the well-knowns, there have been two particular standouts for me. The first was a Jaguar pilot named Flt Lt Ian Hill. I met him in 1986 when he paid a visit to Wick airport in XX118, the year before his fatal accident. I was only 3 years old and didn’t usually like strange men but I was fascinated by him and his aircraft! That was the moment that sparked my interest in aviation and it’s been with me ever since.
The other was a test pilot called Fitz Fulton. I never met him but when I was a student at Georgia Tech in 2003 I took a class led by his brother, Dr Robert Fulton (ex NASA engineer). It was my favourite class – not because of the subject matter, but because Dr Fulton was always happy to share stories of his brother’s flying career with anyone who wanted to listen. Fitz was a distinguished USAF test pilot and then moved to NASA, where he flew the 747 shuttle carrier. What a cool job! I can’t think of any classmate (many of whom were Air Force ROTC students) who didn’t find him an inspiration.
Anyway, to Mary Ellis…
So I’m attempting to establish a sort of repository for these stories, to make a place for people to come if they are looking for a bit of motivation or just a good read. I hope that others are interested in participating, and that we can keep the thread positive (i.e. no negative comparisons between pilots…).
Jay Sata shared a lovely piece about Mary Ellis in another thread, and I’ve copied it below to get started. Looking forward to seeing what others can bring to the thread – it could be about a well-known aviator or maybe about a private pilot, instructor or colleague who you have fond/inspirational memories about (though please respect privacy).
Aside from the well-knowns, there have been two particular standouts for me. The first was a Jaguar pilot named Flt Lt Ian Hill. I met him in 1986 when he paid a visit to Wick airport in XX118, the year before his fatal accident. I was only 3 years old and didn’t usually like strange men but I was fascinated by him and his aircraft! That was the moment that sparked my interest in aviation and it’s been with me ever since.
The other was a test pilot called Fitz Fulton. I never met him but when I was a student at Georgia Tech in 2003 I took a class led by his brother, Dr Robert Fulton (ex NASA engineer). It was my favourite class – not because of the subject matter, but because Dr Fulton was always happy to share stories of his brother’s flying career with anyone who wanted to listen. Fitz was a distinguished USAF test pilot and then moved to NASA, where he flew the 747 shuttle carrier. What a cool job! I can’t think of any classmate (many of whom were Air Force ROTC students) who didn’t find him an inspiration.
Anyway, to Mary Ellis…
Originally Posted by Jay Sata
Mary Ellis’ love affair with flying started before the war when her father took her to Sir Allan Cobham’s air show at Hendon and she persuaded him to let her take a pleasure flight in an Avro 504. “From that moment I was hooked,” says Mary and after learning to fly at Witney near Oxford, by the time she was sixteen she had obtained her Flying Licence.
So you can imagine her excitement in 1941 when she heard an appeal by the ATA on the radio for women pilots. She applied and was accepted after taking a flying test and told to report to Hatfield with a group of eight girls. They were trained to fly single fighters like Harvards, Hurricanes and Spitfires and later, when the Oxfords and Wellingtons were converted to twin types, all the other twin types in that class.
After her basic training Mary was based at No.15 Pool at Hamble, an all-women pool, and began to fly from aircraft factory aerodromes to airfields anywhere in Britain. In all, the ATA delivered 308,567 aircraft of 122 different types throughout the UK and Northern Ireland and Mary’s total (she calls it ‘modest’) was about 1,000 of 76 different types of military aircraft including 400 Spitfires. She was also one of only two girls to fly a Meteor jet at the end of the war when her sole briefing for the flight was to warn her that in 45 minutes the fuel would run out!
The ATA pilots’ job was dangerous – 143 of them were lost during the war in flying accidents including fourteen women – and the only navigational aids the pilots had were maps, a compass and a stop watch. Flying planes from factories to RAF and FAA airfields in open cockpits was cold and extremely uncomfortable and with no radio facilities, the pilots couldn’t be told about a change in the weather or warned where the balloon barrages were to be raised, popping up all over the sky in poor weather.
Each day the pilots would be taken to the aircraft factory aerodromes in a Fairchild or Anson taxi aircraft which carried 7 to 8 passengers. If any of the planes waiting to be ferried were urgently needed by a squadron,they had to be delivered even if visibility was poor.
The uniform the women pilots wore was a navy blue jacket, skirt or trousers, a pale blue shirt and a black tie. One of Mary’s treasured possessions is a statuette of a woman pilot in uniform with a parachute slung over her shoulder, one of a limited edition of 250. When Sir Stafford-Cripps, Minister of Aircraft Production paid a visit he was so impressed by the work the ATA pilots were doing (by 1943 they were ferrying thousands of aircraft every month) that he recommended the women should be paid the same as their male colleagues.
Mary flew continually for all the war years and though the ‘Attagirls’, as they were called, were entitled to two days off after a stretch of 14 days flying, she didn’t want the time off – Mary wanted to fly. She loved the ‘buzz’ when the plane took off but says it was the comprehensive pilots’ notes written by pilots and engineers that made it possible for her to fly any type of aircraft.
And there’s the amusing story about a Wellington bomber Mary delivered. She had taxied the plane to a parking place but as she climbed down the ladder carrying her parachute, the ground crew asked where was the pilot. “I’m the pilot,” said Mary. They didn’t believe her and went to search the aircraft for the ‘missing pilot’.
On another occasion a not so funny thing happened when Mary and another girl had Priority 1 Spitfires to be delivered from Eastleigh to Wroughton. Urgently required Spitfires were labelled ‘P1 wait’ which meant the Spitfire must be delivered as soon as possible. The two girls took off independently in very poor visibility and Mary was glad to see the runway at Wroughton. She made a quick dash for the ground and was still going fast down the runway when she passed another Spitfire going in the opposite direction. Mary’s autograph book records the other girl said afterwards. “And next time we land on the same aerodrome, on the same runway, at the same moment, may we be going in the same direction!”
And the Spitfire that came looking for her? Mary had written her name on the coaming of a Spitfire she’d delivered towards the end of the war but the plane was never used in battle and eventually it was sold and shipped to Australia. When Robert Lamplough, a plane enthusiast, found the Spitfire and saw Mary’s name on the coaming he brought it back to Britain and started to search for her. Finally, he flew the plane into Sandown airport and First Officer Mary Wilkins (her title while in service) was reunited with the plane she’d last seen on a delivery flight during the war.
Two years ago Carolyn Grace, the only woman flying a Spitfire today, brought the plane to Sandown airport and persuaded Mary to fly with her. “I’ve waited years to get you into a Spitfire in the air,” Carolyn told her and handed over the controls to Mary. “The noise, the smell – it was absolutely marvellous,” Mary remembers. The single-seater Spitfires were called ‘the perfect ladies aeroplane’ because women pilots fitted into the small cockpit perfectly.
After the ATA was disbanded at the end of the war Mary was seconded to RAF 41 Group and continued to ferry aircraft with the RAF. Post-war she was a personal pilot to her father’s friend, a wealthy farmer who later bought Sandown airport. Mary became the managing director – the only female commandant of an airport in Europe.
She says the ATA pilots had the best of both worlds. “We were civilians in the forces,” she said. Called ‘the legion of the air’, the ATA was years ahead of its time in its attitude towards women and by embracing sexual equality the ATA became unique in wartime Britain. All the same, these extraordinary defiantly modern women, these unsung heroines, found it difficult to get jobs as pilots after the war.
The death rate amongst pilots in the ATA was 1 in 10 and each year the RAF acknowledges the vital role these pilots played in World War 11 with an annual memorial flight at RAF Lyneham. In a small garden at Manchester International Airport there’s a memorial to the ‘service, dedication and duty’ of the ATA pilots of Number 14 Ferry Pool and in 2006 a memorial to them was erected at White Waltham airfield in Berkshire. There is also a memorial in the Crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral recording the history of the ATA. Last September a Spitfire and Hurricane flew low over White Waltham to launch a book Giles Whittell has written about women Spitfire pilots.
Today Mary says she has come to terms with advancing years and spends her time in the garden and corresponding with former colleagues. “I was lucky,’ she says, “I was born at the right time.”
‘Spitfire women of World War II’ by Giles Whittell is published by Harper Collins.
So you can imagine her excitement in 1941 when she heard an appeal by the ATA on the radio for women pilots. She applied and was accepted after taking a flying test and told to report to Hatfield with a group of eight girls. They were trained to fly single fighters like Harvards, Hurricanes and Spitfires and later, when the Oxfords and Wellingtons were converted to twin types, all the other twin types in that class.
After her basic training Mary was based at No.15 Pool at Hamble, an all-women pool, and began to fly from aircraft factory aerodromes to airfields anywhere in Britain. In all, the ATA delivered 308,567 aircraft of 122 different types throughout the UK and Northern Ireland and Mary’s total (she calls it ‘modest’) was about 1,000 of 76 different types of military aircraft including 400 Spitfires. She was also one of only two girls to fly a Meteor jet at the end of the war when her sole briefing for the flight was to warn her that in 45 minutes the fuel would run out!
The ATA pilots’ job was dangerous – 143 of them were lost during the war in flying accidents including fourteen women – and the only navigational aids the pilots had were maps, a compass and a stop watch. Flying planes from factories to RAF and FAA airfields in open cockpits was cold and extremely uncomfortable and with no radio facilities, the pilots couldn’t be told about a change in the weather or warned where the balloon barrages were to be raised, popping up all over the sky in poor weather.
Each day the pilots would be taken to the aircraft factory aerodromes in a Fairchild or Anson taxi aircraft which carried 7 to 8 passengers. If any of the planes waiting to be ferried were urgently needed by a squadron,they had to be delivered even if visibility was poor.
The uniform the women pilots wore was a navy blue jacket, skirt or trousers, a pale blue shirt and a black tie. One of Mary’s treasured possessions is a statuette of a woman pilot in uniform with a parachute slung over her shoulder, one of a limited edition of 250. When Sir Stafford-Cripps, Minister of Aircraft Production paid a visit he was so impressed by the work the ATA pilots were doing (by 1943 they were ferrying thousands of aircraft every month) that he recommended the women should be paid the same as their male colleagues.
Mary flew continually for all the war years and though the ‘Attagirls’, as they were called, were entitled to two days off after a stretch of 14 days flying, she didn’t want the time off – Mary wanted to fly. She loved the ‘buzz’ when the plane took off but says it was the comprehensive pilots’ notes written by pilots and engineers that made it possible for her to fly any type of aircraft.
And there’s the amusing story about a Wellington bomber Mary delivered. She had taxied the plane to a parking place but as she climbed down the ladder carrying her parachute, the ground crew asked where was the pilot. “I’m the pilot,” said Mary. They didn’t believe her and went to search the aircraft for the ‘missing pilot’.
On another occasion a not so funny thing happened when Mary and another girl had Priority 1 Spitfires to be delivered from Eastleigh to Wroughton. Urgently required Spitfires were labelled ‘P1 wait’ which meant the Spitfire must be delivered as soon as possible. The two girls took off independently in very poor visibility and Mary was glad to see the runway at Wroughton. She made a quick dash for the ground and was still going fast down the runway when she passed another Spitfire going in the opposite direction. Mary’s autograph book records the other girl said afterwards. “And next time we land on the same aerodrome, on the same runway, at the same moment, may we be going in the same direction!”
And the Spitfire that came looking for her? Mary had written her name on the coaming of a Spitfire she’d delivered towards the end of the war but the plane was never used in battle and eventually it was sold and shipped to Australia. When Robert Lamplough, a plane enthusiast, found the Spitfire and saw Mary’s name on the coaming he brought it back to Britain and started to search for her. Finally, he flew the plane into Sandown airport and First Officer Mary Wilkins (her title while in service) was reunited with the plane she’d last seen on a delivery flight during the war.
Two years ago Carolyn Grace, the only woman flying a Spitfire today, brought the plane to Sandown airport and persuaded Mary to fly with her. “I’ve waited years to get you into a Spitfire in the air,” Carolyn told her and handed over the controls to Mary. “The noise, the smell – it was absolutely marvellous,” Mary remembers. The single-seater Spitfires were called ‘the perfect ladies aeroplane’ because women pilots fitted into the small cockpit perfectly.
After the ATA was disbanded at the end of the war Mary was seconded to RAF 41 Group and continued to ferry aircraft with the RAF. Post-war she was a personal pilot to her father’s friend, a wealthy farmer who later bought Sandown airport. Mary became the managing director – the only female commandant of an airport in Europe.
She says the ATA pilots had the best of both worlds. “We were civilians in the forces,” she said. Called ‘the legion of the air’, the ATA was years ahead of its time in its attitude towards women and by embracing sexual equality the ATA became unique in wartime Britain. All the same, these extraordinary defiantly modern women, these unsung heroines, found it difficult to get jobs as pilots after the war.
The death rate amongst pilots in the ATA was 1 in 10 and each year the RAF acknowledges the vital role these pilots played in World War 11 with an annual memorial flight at RAF Lyneham. In a small garden at Manchester International Airport there’s a memorial to the ‘service, dedication and duty’ of the ATA pilots of Number 14 Ferry Pool and in 2006 a memorial to them was erected at White Waltham airfield in Berkshire. There is also a memorial in the Crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral recording the history of the ATA. Last September a Spitfire and Hurricane flew low over White Waltham to launch a book Giles Whittell has written about women Spitfire pilots.
Today Mary says she has come to terms with advancing years and spends her time in the garden and corresponding with former colleagues. “I was lucky,’ she says, “I was born at the right time.”
‘Spitfire women of World War II’ by Giles Whittell is published by Harper Collins.
Last edited by Littlest Hobo; 30th Nov 2016 at 11:27. Reason: to add link
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I believe Mary Ellis was the lovely lady who served us with tea and cake when we flew into Sandown thirty years ago. Only found out who she was later on.
Very parochially, my basic instructor on JPs, John Metcalfe, sadly no longer with us, and Eric Fell who was a QFI on 360. Three main QFIs on the Gnat, but Vic Wightman did the most for me, saved my life when I got into hole I did not know the way out of
