R.I.P. JOY LOFTHOUSE ( ATA )

[Phil Perry]

 

Joy Lofthouse – ATA Pilot and Honorary Life member of the RAF Association passes away age 94 - RAF Association

 

Here is a bit of history on one of Joy's contemporaries in the all Women A.T.A. With some detailed history of what she flew. Mary Wilkins Ellis.

 

https://solentaviatrix.word...

 

 

[kaz3g]

Thanks Phil.

 

Kaz

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Thanks Phil.Kaz

Hey no probs Kaz. . . I think that what these ladies did in WW2 was amazing. I realise tht there are lot more personal stories out there somewhere. . .we get the occasional TV prog with actual interviews with the Ladies themselves. . .some of the tales are hilarious, like the one where a tiny slip of a Lady delivered a Wellington Bomber to a squadron and the Adjutant searched the aircraft for the REAL pilot ! !

 

If I come cross any more I'll post them up.

 

 

[Jaba-who]

Hey no probs Kaz. . . I think that what these ladies did in WW2 was amazing. I realise tht there are lot more personal stories out there somewhere. . .we get the occasional TV prog with actual interviews with the Ladies themselves. . .some of the tales are hilarious, like the one where a tiny slip of a Lady delivered a Wellington Bomber to a squadron and the Adjutant searched the aircraft for the REAL pilot ! !If I come cross any more I'll post them up.

There was a video program floating around about these amazing women. Don't recall the name but I recall a few snippets.

One was that these pilots got no instruction or time on the aircraft before they were expected to ferry them. Sometimes they got the flight manual but sometimes they'd arrive at the airfield to find the aircraft with just got a few hand written notes on the seat with the various speeds for take off, landing, flaps and undercarriage deployment. That was it.

 

Another story was that they were trained to always land on one side of the centre line not down the centre. One of the women recounted how she ferried a fighter in atrocious weather with almost no visibility and finally found the airstrip in the fog. Landed - and as she was about mid-runway another fighter rolled past her in the fog in the opposite direction. Fortunately also landing off centre.

 

The video would be well worth watching if you can find it.

 

 

[M61A1]

[Jaba-who]

After I wrote my post I thought I'd hunt for it. Found this one too. Very interesting as well. But there are more of them. Didn't look familiar. No mention about the landing in both directions at same time.

 

 

[Phil Perry]

After I wrote my post I thought I'd hunt for it. Found this one too. Very interesting as well. But there are more of them. Didn't look familiar. No mention about the landing in both directions at same time.

HEY. . .. why should there be ? ? ? ? that would have been an incident amongst thousands. . . . I never recorded in my logbook ( The Nasty bits ) the time I approached Merimbula one day,. .and got no response on the radio,. . .( as you do |) \i overflew the place and decided to land on Rwy 21 Left. . . only because the Sydney surface wind was forecast as 'Southerly@ 12 Kts' .

 

Imagine my shock and awe,. . .to be presented with a Fukker Friendship machine 'HEAD ON' which had landed downwind on Rwy Zero Three. . . If you know Merimbula, you will know that it has a bit f a 'Bump in the middle. . .I never saw that airliner approaching. NO RADIO CALL THAT I EVER HEARD ANYHOW. . .. it was not funny. I had a 'Discussion with the Captain of said aircraft afterwards and he said that . . .'Private Light Aircraft in this country are the BANE OF OUR LIVES, , ,YOU THINK YOU OWN THE SKY AND ignore all of the satety rules. . . ' ( ? ) This was the closest I had ever come to punching a fully uniformed airline Pilot in the face. That man was,. . .( In my view ) a fecking Twot.

 

 

[Yenn]

By owning the sky he meant being there.

 

Same thing happened at Gladstone years ago, except that the light aircraft was a Cessna and he was downwind, both peeled off to the right and the cessna pilot was grounded for some time.

 

I also saw an RAAF jet passenger type come into Gladstone. Nicely lined up on final, wheels down, flaps out all ready to land, then he went round, screamed over the Civic offices, where the engineers brother was working. Meanwhile the airport manager was practically having a heart attack. It did look good.