Time to pull the feathers off those offensive RAF wings now, isn't it?

The latest wiki entry states

I guess the private attacks refer to Barry Tempest and Chris Martyr?

As for 'anonymous internet votes' I was under the impression they were postal votes that required LAA membership and identity to vote?

I should point out I am not a LAA member and am thousands of miles away.

I received the proxy form from the LAA, as did every other member of the LAA with this months Light Aviation magazine, which clearly stated, motion to rescind the award.
There was no mention of review.
The form required membership number, name, address and signature and appropriate for or against boxes ticked.
This was not in any way anonymous or ambiguous.
I have not seen a copy of the agenda issued at the meeting to attendees.

Jay Sata, you are absolutely correct and the suggestion that they were "anonymous voters" is a profound insult to the LAA and its members.

HCAP please take note of the sort of people you are playing with.

It can't last on Wiki - the original quote that BEagle shows has proper references against it. The current one is just vitriol. Presumably someone sensible will come along and lock-out the offending IP addresses.

My voting form also stated the motion was to rescind the award. I put my name to my vote, signed the form and included my membership number so I presume that my vote (for the motion) was NOT anonymous.

Jay, that whole paragraph has a peevish and spoiled-brat quality that does TCT no favours at all, all it lacks is her stamping her foot and wailing Waaaa! Waaa! It's not fair! though most readers can hear that between the lines, loud and clear.

Lets see how long it lasts on Wiki once the Moderator From Hungary realises it is unhelpful to the cause!

Clive, the objection to anonymous here is, imo, an objection to her opponents being anonymous to her. As a professional social climber and shameless name dropper it is essential to know who is on your side and who is not, the inability to determine someone's view could at best lead to missed opportunities and at the worst to hugely embarrassing mistakes and gaffes. It is evidently very frustrating not to know.

Outreach, my @rse! More like Bake Off.

This was never about outreach, it's always been about her and a brilliantly executed sales pitch that secured her a round the world jolly on someone else's dollar! If it had been executed as planned, good for her, if she had announced the change of plan and still done the trip as amended, good for her again, but….

She promised her sponsors the world and told them that she would fly around it. It would be a "solo" venture to copy the likes of historic pioneering heroines like Lady Mary Heath, and later Amy Johnson, and the choice of a Stearman was a brainwave perfectly timed to coincide with Boeing's centenary. Knowing that the press would lap up coverage of a glamorous bird in a biplane she used the gender angle as a trump card, and to finally sell the cake she had been baking it would be topped off with a sprinkling of outreach and a few school and women’s group visits along the way. The ingredients had been chosen with great care and from preparation through to execution she had been meticulous with every bit of the detail. Her sponsors loved its look, shape and smell – if ever there was a contender for the Great British bake off, this was it – and they chose to buy it.

To be fair, TC-T did an incredible job in putting together the pitch and selling the concept to secure herself a great sponsorship deal. Full marks to her here, and she had every right to enjoy the trip she had sold to those who would pay for it. All she needed to do next was deliver what she had written on the tin.

In the run up to her 2013 Cape Town to UK flight the press, fired up by an around-the-clock PR team, were lapping up TC-T cakes which were literally flying off the shelves. Unbeknown to everyone though, and for reasons that have yet to be fully explained, by this time TC-T (or possibly her sponsors) had decided to change the recipe. One can only imagine that the TC-T team thought that nobody would notice – after all it was only to be a tweak that wouldn’t have any material effect on the taste. They were almost correct, few noticed a difference and the cakes kept on selling. TC-T cakes were everywhere, and to her delight they were now going global. And so too was she.

Sadly for TC-T though, and unbeknown to her at the time, a member of her support team – a pilot named Sam Rutherford, who also happens to be a renowned baking aficionado – had detected something that he thought was a little odd. It seems also that he was not the only one, and according to reliable accounts, mid way through the trip a discussion took place between TC-T and her sponsors concerning how the TC-T cakes were being marketed. It seems that TC-T may have been ever so slightly over egging the mixture, and the sponsors were getting a little bit jittery. Nevertheless, all was still going well with sales, and TC-T’s twitter, website and FB feeds were pumping out the news as she photo opted herself at every stop on her replication of Lady Heath’s historic solo flight up through Africa.

For Tracey this was to be no holiday. It was long, tiring trip and, unlike Lady Mary Heath, Tracey had to deal with border controls, permits, visas and endless paperwork at every stop, and she had to arrange for fuel which was not available everywhere. In the air it wasn’t easy either – nowadays there are airspace restrictions, control zones and special airways and other complicated things that non-pilots clearly won’t understand. Navigating through and around these certainly isn’t a cakewalk. And let’s not get started talking about the weather, especially the thick fog (there’s lots of that in Africa) and hailstones that can be really dangerous if one doesn’t have accurate forecasts and up to date satellite images available. Obviously Lady Mary Heath didn’t have to worry about all of this seventy eight years ago, so for the TC-T bake off flight this really was a much harder task to achieve, especially for a solo pilot, and one who was alone in an old fashioned “stick and rudder” airplane. Getting this message across to the press wasn’t easy either, and had to be repeated time and time again. But soon she would arrive home to a glorious welcome, and for a while the TC-T cake would remain a family favourite. But the clock was ticking…

More to follow….the pub is calling.

Having just looked on Wikipedia, the 'Controversy' statement that appears there shows a marker to the picture of her standing in front of a graphic stating 'alone in an open cock-pit (sic)'. I've seen it on this thread before but I thought it was a private pic posted by a PPruner. Now I can see it comes from the Canadian National Post. Surely that must convince the naysayers?

(From TCT's Wiki page)

This one puzzles me. I thought the only pilots used by the Shuttleworth Collection were ex ETPS or very similar. Although the paragraph says "at" rather than "with" it very much implies (to me, at least) that her relationship with the SC was an internal one rather than as an invited guest, and the rather curious use of the Past Imperfect tense instead of the more conventional Past tense serves to amplify the suggestion that this was an internal and long-running, established situation.
Did she actually fly for the SC as implied, or did she in reality fly at Old Warden displays which I think is a very important distinction.

Perhaps my interpretation of this is incorrect in which case I'll delete this post. Or is this yet another of her PR cabal's oh just not quite an untruth that this whole farrago seems to revolve around?

She DID NOT fly any of the collection's owned aircraft. I believe that she based her aircraft there, and presumably paid for that. Inclusion of this in her bio simply bumps up the image she would like to project.

One thing puzzles me.

If TC-T has so many supporters who feel aggrieved by postings made, why do they not voice their views here and explain their (or her) side of the story?

Similarly the TC-T publicity machine and her sponsors do not respond to inquiries seeking clarification, or bother to put forward anything other than clarifications that muddy the waters even more - like the "sole" pilot explanation, that is a widely laughed at joke.

So if I paid the RAF to have my C150 based at Coningsby I could claim on my c.v. that I was flying as a pilot at the BBMF between such and such dates?

Yeehaaar!

The last time I looked, the youngsters were queueing up for jobs and the women were either sitting in the cockpit or in the case of EasyJet, running the company. For god's sake woman, wake up. This is the 21st century, we have a second woman PM and her gender didn't warrant a single word in the press. Germany has a female chancellor and even the USA is looking likely to have a female president. Today, nobody gives a toss about gender.

It's called " Shouting at doors that have already long been opened."
I well remember Elizabeth Overbury instructing at Luton Flying Club c.1960 on her way to her ATPL LHS on a Jet Airliner.
Not to mention the ATA ladies, some now Centenarians.......

TCT and her backers are spouting rubbish.

The doors were wide open in the 30's to the likes of Mary Heath,Amy Johnson,Jean Batten etc .Those women flew solo without "engineers and a support team".

Get real Tracey and if you want to 'emulate' them a good start would be achieving your UK commercial pilots licence on the Tiger Moth. If Amanda Harrison can do it I am sure you can.

We would all respect you if you solo piloted a Tiger Moth to Oz.

It would make a better movie as well.

What's all the noise about China she's been making recently? Is it perhaps that was going to be the next big ballyhooed jolly had this controversy not arisen, bringing outreach and empowerment there ? If it was I cant see that getting of the ground now.

She won't get anywhere in China trust me Piperboy.

OK to visit as a tourist and that is about the sum of it.

Colin Hales in his KR 2 is stuck on the Russian Chinese border without a support crew and bag carriers.

Are you sure China and not Hong Kong?

There is a big difference.

I see the Mirror now running with the tale of woe......

British 'Bird in a Biplane' stripped of flying award amid claims she wasn't flying solo - Mirror Online this one Midifec?