Editorial

from the editor may–july 2019

Saluting Women in Aviation was the theme of this year’s Classic Fighters Air Show at Omaka. Of course, I was there. John and I are always at the Easter air shows, whether they’re in Wanaka or Omaka. John is in his element taking pictures and I try to find some new way to describe the action in my role as reporter for Kiwi Flyer magazine. It’s a ‘work trip’ but it’s not exactly a hardship.

The show’s theme gave me a great place to start but I felt that the organisers had only paid lip service to the idea. Yes, there was good signage around the field about notable women in aviation, but disappointingly, Jean Batten was the only New Zealand woman mentioned. The New Zealand Association of Women in Aviation (NZAWA aka Airwomens Association) would have been delighted to have filled them in on noteworthy New Zealand pilots, for instance our women who flew with the Air Transport Auxiliary during the war. At the very last moment a fly past of NZAWA pilots was organised to precede the show each day. This wasn’t even on the programme.

Pam Collings, the first New Zealander to represent the country at a Worlds Aerobatic Championship, in 1976, was on the programme; Andrew Love flying her routine while she gave a commentary. That was great and Pam did a good job at directing the crowds to come down to the ‘Airwomens’ tent and buy Silver Wings, the Association’s book, updated by Pam.

I decided to do my own salute to aviation women and spent my time at the show finding the wonderful aviation women who were there, not the ones there as spectators, and there were plenty of those, but the ones who were there with a job to do. There were the obvious ones, the Air New Zealand Ambassadors, both pilots in their flash uniforms and an engineer in lilac overalls, the Airforce personnel, both in flight suits and dress uniforms, covering many roles, but I also found some of the women quietly getting on with their roles as display pilots, ground staff and the owners/pilots of some of the aircraft on display.

Aviation women has therefore been my focus for several weeks as I’ve written up these stories. Serendipitously, as I was pulling together material for this magazine, I was sent Diane Edwards’ piece reminding us that in gliding, women fly too. I am not at all sorry that the theme ran away with me. I decided to put together a piece on notable New Zealand women glider

pilots. I got hold of several people for more information and Roger Brown from Vintage Kiwi sent me a copy of Ann Johnson’s original report on her amazing 1979 goal flight to Gisborne. This had originally appeared in the Gliding Kiwi and SoaringNZ had also run it back in issue 30. It’s a good story and I decided to run it again. Then, when checking details of the story, I spoke with Ann’s sons (both of whom had been good friends of mine back in the ‘80s, but that’s a whole lot of other stories), Tiger sent me a copy of his Dad’s column about what happened on the way to retrieve Ann from Gisborne. He added a few missing pieces of the tale. The whole saga happened 40 years ago but it could easily be contemporary. It’s all good reading and it’s all gone in.

Ruth Pryde, passed away this week. Ruth was a lady who was a side line feature of New Zealand gliding for many years, crewing, working radios and start and finish lines in spite of not

flying herself, and continuing long after her husband Ian died. She did it because she enjoyed it and she wanted to. Thinking about Ruth is a reminder not to forget the many wives and girlfriends who have put a great deal of time into the sport over the years for little recognition. Ruth was an aviation woman through and through. Our current women pilots feature in several stories too: the reports on the Central Districts contest and the Youth Glide Easter Mini-Camp are predominantly written by women pilots. Diane Edwards has also written about her experiences flying with Sebastian Kawa, and Abbey Delore shares her delight in taking gliding icon Peter Lyon’s granddaughter Ally to gliding events. It’s a pleasure to showcase all these women. The future of the sport is in very good hands. Stay safe Jill McCaw