 And it took 65 years before we recognized the girls who'd flown Spitfires and bombers in World War II. There were actually quite a few women in America flying, but very quickly, you know, World War I, nobody could fly, yet there's a civilian pilot, everybody was grounded. These girls in aviation were taking jobs that rightfully belonged to me. He pulled out the pink slip and he put it on top of his clipboard and my heart just went. You know, my attitude to that is get off your back sides there, we arm-share critics, and go and try to do it. Tracy, how are you? Good morning, I'm very well, thank you. Yes, you're looking very well. Tracy, I'm so humbled and honored to meet you. I've got to talk because I'm a podcast. I better say something. Kick it off, Chris. Yes, I noticed something when I was reading a bit of your memoir, Bird. Friends, link below from what I've read so far. This is a book that you want to read. There's a link below. But you mentioned, I think it was misogyny in the kind of aviation field. And I just wanted to say off the bat that the reason I got my pilot's license. It came off the back of a conversation I had with a girl in New Zealand. And we were doing our stage one of the AFF skydiving course. And we just done our first jump and we were in the hangar and we were having a chat and she said to me, oh, I'm a pilot. I think one thing that I've noticed is a bit different about me to a pilot. A lot of people on me is immediately Tracy. I was just fascinated. I want to hear all about this. How do you get a pilot license? What is it to take off in a plane and successfully? And she was telling me stuff about, well, Chris, you move from airspace to airspace and you've got a radio into the air traffic control to ask for permission. And I just found it fascinating, Tracy. And so when I got back to the UK, I booked myself on a course in Florida, a place called Fort Pierce. And lo and behold, after some three, it might have been three and a half weeks of intense study, finally got to take my pilot test. It was about eight hours long, passed a whole series of exams before it. And when my, it was a Swedish chat turned to me and said, I'll tell you what he did. You have like a pink slip. It means you failed and you have a green one that means you passed. And this, this swine, he pulled out the pink slip and he put it on top of his clipboard and my heart just went failed again, Chris. Failed yet, yet another thing in it. And then he went, oh no, this is the one I want. And he pulled out the, getting emotional, Tracy, just thinking about it. It was a phenomenal experience. But going back to the misogyny bit, you know, it was a, it was a girl that got me into flying and I, I'm a bit, a bit shocked to, a bit shocked to hear that some blokes were a bit offish in this, in this community. Why would that surprise you, Chris? I mean, given your military background, I mean, funny enough, when you look at the history of aviation and of course my flights, I was following the female pioneers of the air in that interwar period and learning about some of the hostility that they were up against and this, and this very, you know, this, this hostile male establishment, which was, had been created by the military, can I just say, you know, this came from World War One in the early, early years of aviation. Certainly in America, they were, they were actually quite a lot of women flying and I'm talking about, you know, the Wright brothers in 1903. So in that decade before World War One, there were actually quite a few women in America flying, but very quickly, you know, World War One, it just, nobody could fly as a civilian pilot, everybody was grounded and this is where that whole hierarchy and culture was created and it didn't permit women. I mean, and almost, if you look at all of the 20th century, it was about how women were blocked from aviation. I mean, just talking about this particular industry. In Britain, some 30,000 women worked in World War One making airplanes around the aviation industry. And part of the RAF, the Royal Flying Corps, not one of them had a job in civilian aviation in the interwar period. Then of course, we had the famous ATA, the Air Transport Auxiliary in World War Two, which started off as 12 women flying Tiger Moths at Hatfield. And this was a really big political issue, let me tell you. Can we possibly allow women, the fact that, you know, we obviously biologically different, we menstruate, that was a big problem. And quite honestly, it wasn't until what, 1990, that we allowed women into the military in this country. And it took 65 years before we recognized the girls who'd flown Spitfires and bombers in World War Two. 65 years to recognize, and that only happened what, 15 years ago. So this attitude is absolutely entrenched in aviation. Now it's changing, it's not changing quickly enough, but it was the military that created that hierarchy and that culture that blocked women from participating. Yes. I'm probably not shocked, Tracey, just disappointed really. Hence why you're my wonderful guest today. I don't know if you've read any Naomi Wolfe. She wrote a book and in the book, she highlighted exactly what you said. She said, you know, prior to war, all the TV advertising is, hey girls, you know, get your washing up gloves on and your soft, fairy liquid to do your dishes and, you know, put all this makeup on, did, did, did. When war breaks out, all that narrative changes and it's like, right girls, get in the factories and what did they do? They got in the factories and they did the job better than the blokes. And they're churning out aircraft after aircraft or whatever it, you know, and then of course, when the war stops, it's, right girls, back to happy families, you know, get your, get your marrygoads on and, and, and yes, incredibly raw. You then get accused and they were accused after, after World War II in America. These girls in aviation were taking jobs that rightfully belonged to men. So these sorts of attitudes and, you know, we think we're in a sort of enlightened age in an enlightened country, but you can see some of the problems we've had recently with the CBI, you know, the biggest governmental lobbying group, the Met Police. Look at the attitudes towards women. And I think this is one of the biggest problems confronting the world today, apart from global warming and all the rest of it, wars in Ukraine. It is how women are treated in society. So there's a much bigger issue. This imbalance of power, it's, it's how, you know, and it's, it's only recently, when you look at the developments in aviation, some of these pioneering women who are striving to sort of work as commercial pilots, and they were banned from doing that in the early 1920s, the International Civil Aviation Organization, actually it was illegal for women to fly in commercial airspace, even though they could hold a commercial license. So as well as doing the flying, you're also struggling to try and get, you know, just get the recognition, get the same status, earn the same pay, get the vote. You know, so when you look at what the women were up against, I think their achievements are exponentially greater than the pioneering male flyers because of what they're up against. And look, you know, when I juxtapose that with some of the experience I've had, I mean, I've had an unusual career in aviation. I can describe it as a career because mine was driven by a kind of romantic idea of flight and a passion for flying, but I could never join the military. It never even occurred to me. You know, I'm at a northern comprehensive in the north of England. You couldn't join the air cadets. I didn't go to university. You couldn't join the air squadron. You couldn't join the military. And in fairness, it didn't even occur to me. There was no career advice. I ended up coming at flying almost circuitously. You know, I loved watching those magnificent men in their flying machines was just a huge driver for me. I just love that whole mad romantic adventure of it. You know, I had my first flying lesson at 16 in Canada, just completely random with, you know, my twin sister and I had flown in an airliner, absolutely loved it. And then I saw, you know, some friends live near an airfield and I saw a sign advertising introductory flights. And I went and had a flight. So that was 16. But I couldn't afford to fly in Britain, you know, how expensive everything is here. It just wasn't feasible or accessible in any way. So it wasn't until I moved to New Zealand in the sort of mid 80s that I started in earnest. And I just then waitress modeled, worked on garage forecourt. So I just, you know, all manner of, you know, manual jobs just to pay for my flight. So in some respects, that was the hardest part of it, paying for it. If you live in the city I live in, if you go out the front door, every young girl is dressed in pink, every young, and I said to my friend once, he's got three, four girls now, I think. And I said, you know, what's the, like the pink deal? Do you, are you trying to like stereotype your daughters from birth to be like fluffy and print? And he said, Chris, it's not that. You said, you can't buy anything for young girls that's not pink. And I don't know friends at home get this, but I just see like a deep, deep programming in there. And when I brought this up on my youth work course, which is all about equality and, you know, hold my hand up. I'm a feminist if that means that we should have equal blooming rights. I got looked at like a scant by my, by my fellow, they just didn't get, they were like, what's wrong with wearing pink? And was nothing, nothing wrong with wearing pink per se? Well, it's true. You do look at this and you ask, that's right. We just, is this gender thing so prescribed that we all, you know, little boys drive tractors and have aeroplanes and girls have their dolls and their pink frilly dresses. You know, and there's no doubt about it. There is, there is social conditioning on that. But, but also, you know, there is a great impetus towards these things. That's how they develop. That's how it became stereotypes. They were there kind of in the first place. So, you know, when you look at, I mean, just to bring that debate to the whole idea of, you know, women in aviation, the fact that the statistics now, there's only something like 5% of commercial pilots that are women. And I think, now why is that? Okay. Because now there's fantastic scholarships. There's fantastic support. You know, all of this is accessible to women. And yet they don't seem to be stepping up to the plate. Now, I don't think it's ever going to be 50-50. But I'd like to think it might be 25, 75 women and, you know, women into aviation, engineering, et cetera. But what is it? Is the societal culture so great that it, you know, it's never going to be like that. So I don't know what to think about it. But I do think that it needs to start in schools in terms of the opportunities that are out there. And it's not gender-driven, and it shouldn't be, obviously. You know, I mean, although, you know, you can look at this, but when I get into an airplane, I'm not thinking, here I am a female flying. It's above gender. People who, you know, you desire to do it, they share, you share exactly the same passion. Everybody predominantly shares that dream of flight, don't they? But we've all got so bogged in the gender issue. And that's, it's just awful, actually. I just, I hope now that, you know, we finally are working towards something that resembles a level playing field. I know it's not. I know it's not. But, you know, we have to strive for that, don't we, to be equal partners in these things. Because I'm a veteran, Tracy, I see the way fellow veterans treat each other at times. Not all of them folks are some wonderful, wonderful people. For the vast majority of the veterans community, a lovely, lovely people. But some of them are just so bitter and full of this outpouring of hatred to anyone that achieves anything. It's always you got to be, you got to tear them down rather than just say something nice, which I think should be the only thing we say. So, you know what, Chris? I think that's an extraordinarily British thing to drag people down. You know, it's that tall coffee syndrome. And I don't really know why that is, whether we struggle so hard in this country, whether there's just too many of us. And it's just so difficult to get, you know, keep your head above the water, but they resent it when somebody goes out and achieves something. Because success is regarded differently in America. The attitude there is can do. They applaud you for, you know, for trying. Never mind achieving just for trying something. But here there's a kind of simmering resentment. And I've certainly seen some of that. And I have to believe that some of that is envy, you know. But, you know, some of the garbage that I was dealing with. And I don't want to pre-empt what's in the book here, but it tapped into a deep vein of misogyny and a kind of envy, actually, in this sense, this rather cynical sense that I had somehow been given everything on a plate, which just frankly staggers me. It staggers me because this again, this attitude, which came predominantly from males, you know, it seems to me that the whole system is so weighted one way. And yet they really don't like it when somebody, you know, somebody unusual breaks rank and does something unusual. And it's like, oh, well, it was easy for her. You know, she was given this. You know, she got the sponsorship. Well, get out, you know, my attitude to that is get off your back sides there in the armchair critics and go and try to do it. Because just doing something like this, it's not like if it was easy, believe me, more people would be doing it. I can tell you, it is excruciatingly difficult. It took me four years to raise the money, to find the aeroplane, to build the team, and building the sponsorship was the single most difficult thing. So just to get in, to speak to people, you know, to build the whole momentum and impetus behind that, but my God, it was difficult. So to then get these people who were then criticizing you, oh, you know, she's claiming to fly solo. She's not all this trivial white noise. I just thought, wow, they have no idea what's involved. So it's a terrible kind of ignorance, actually. Yes. People say it's a reflection of what's going on in there, their mind and their life, isn't it? You know, we need to recognize that. It's kind of funny. I'm going to just big myself up here, Tracy, but I'm currently the English veteran of the year for inspiration, okay? Congratulations. And even though, you know, I host military veterans events, I've done an awful lot of work for military. You still get people online who don't believe that I've served. And it makes me chuckle, A, because like I literally don't care. You know, it was just a job I did. It was quite a long time ago now. I've done lots of stuff in my life, folks. But it makes me chuckle that you've got all these resources at hand over the internet. You could literally just type my name into, dare I say Google, and you're going to just see immediately all this information about me. And yet, people live in this little bubble where they have this thought, right? I don't think you so. And they're willing to just put that out. But these are the classic conspiracy theories, aren't they? This is the Q and on people. This is the, you know, but this is what the internet has done. It's given everybody a voice. I mean, certainly, and I was subjected to the most extraordinary stuff, but all anonymous. That's what cracked me up. Not only are they awful critics, they're just their cowards, but all these kind of, you know, failed, embittered, women bashing individuals who were just out there on the internet in cyberspace. And I just thought, what a dreadful, what a dreadful kind of thing that is really, but you just have to rise above it and crack on with what you do and the good people come with you. I do believe that, you know? Well, Tracy, I can tell you now, and I speak on behalf of our wonderful guest, our wonderful viewers out there and listeners, because we've got a great, great bunch of people. And I tell you what you thoroughly deserve, all your accolades and your achievements are just incredible. And we don't need to defend ourselves against anyone, do we? You know, we... I don't need their approval. That's the point. I don't care about anything. But it's amazing how powerful, you know, they can make all sorts of garbage go viral. I mean, this is, of course, the really dark side of the internet and the sort of, you know, the opinion forums that are created. And they're just insidious and, you know, they've just become these echo chambers. So never mind all the things that you're trying to do. I mean, all I was trying to do is fly my aeroplane, you know, highlight what these amazing female aviators have done to try and inspire the next generation and get more women in aviation and aerospace. And yet here you are, you get this... You know, having said that, can I just qualify that by saying that the attacks that I was subjected to were driven by one individual who, guess what, was ex-military, you know, an angry little individual who came on board as our logistics manager in Africa. He drove the entire campaign. So you see, when I talk about the military, I've had fantastic support in the course of my life. All my early flying in New Zealand with the New Zealand warbirds. A lot of the people there were ex-military. You know, my flying at Shuffleworth for nine years, they were all military test pilots who fly the Shuffleworth collection, one of the rarest collections of flying aeroplanes in the world. So, you know, I've had an amazing experience with military people. You know, my experience with the Navy, they made me an honorary lieutenant commander. I've had fantastic support. It's just the occasional one, and this is where you come against this attitude, again, this entitlement, this obsession with power and control, and on some level a kind of anger that you're dealing with, and they think, who is this woman? Who does she think she is? And I'm going to take her down. I'm going to put her in her place. So, you know, the villains in my book, I hate to say it, but have, you know, we're military people. And that's what I'm talking about, the attitude. So I'm sure you've encountered that. It's not just, you know, but I don't think that had I been a male, I would have been subjected to some of the stuff I was subjected to. So as a female, you feel like you're a soft target for this stuff. And I'm sure you're a much more wiser and tougher person for it, Tracy. Do you know what? I don't normally give this sort of thing airtime, just simply because I don't believe in giving power to other... I live my life. I live in paradise. That's it, really. I want to come on and talk about your incredible story. I'm going to start right from the beginning. I've made a couple of notes, started flying at 16. Before I do that, can I just do a second showing off? Do you... I don't know if you can see my show, I'll put it on specially. You know, I clock that. Yes. Have you been in the Spitfire? Yes! Oh, you! I'll make it out. I'm going to tell you the official spin, and then I'll... drag it down again, but basically, I had a wonderful chat called Richard contact me, big fan of the podcast, and he said, Chris, do you want to fly a Spitfire? There's only one answer to that, folks, if you're a pilot. You guess what that is. There's a slight catch. It's a Spitfire simulator. But it is actually a Spitfire. It's the original casing of the cockpit of a Second World War Spitfire. And what Richard's done, he's turned it into a flight simulator. Okay. So you literally hop into this craft and you put your Second World War that helmet-y thing. Yes, and he's big. And you can fly anywhere in the world that you want. So I picked my hometown being a military place, puts it into the computer, and the next thing, you're literally taking off flying and landing, just as you would in a real aircraft. And I can say that because obviously I've flown real planes. You've obviously... You've flown the old ones. No, no. I'm, you know, in the interest of openness, I've only flown Cessnas. I've only done, I'll say only, I'm a private pilot. So is it single-engine land? I guess the land means as opposed to a water boat, you know, a water bird rather. But oh, it's incredible, Tracy. The whole history of it, they set it up so it vibrates in the same way. I'm vibrating now. I'm going to take off. But it's just the full-on experience. It was just utterly incredible. Richard, if you're watching, can't... And also it's like a 500-quid experience that Richard just very kindly gave me and my family. Yeah. It's quite funny. You're flying a spitfire in wartime, Plymouth folks. And then your little boy, like, leans over your shoulders and says, all right, Dad. All right. Now, what do you like? Hey, well, listen, I'm going in a Concord spitfire simulator at Brooklands. So they do a similar thing. They do this experience that members of the public can go and do. They can come and try it out. So, you know, this is on real flying, a supersonic airliner versus an open cockpit 1940s biplane. So I expect it's going to be a challenge. Tracy, I want to tell your story. Sorry, I've been talking a lot, folks, but this is what I love about the podcast is, you know, I want guests on there. I can just share stories with because it's an incredible life. It's an incredible life. But how did you start flying at 16? No, it was honestly, you know, it was a holiday to Canada with my twin sister. We'd been raised there. We were there from the age of two till 10. And then we came back to the north of England. But Deb and I went out there in 1978. And while she went shopping one afternoon, I went flying. So I'd seen this sign at the side of the road introductory flight $10, whatever it was. So I did my circuit round the airfield and I was just so blown away by all this that the young Austrian pilot couldn't get rid of me. And he ended up taking me with him on a charter to Vancouver Island. So I ended up flying all afternoon with him. And that was the start of it. I obviously went back to school. I was doing my A-levels after that. So it wasn't until I went to New Zealand in 1983. So, you know, five, six years later that I was then working and I, you know, there was I was actually in Queenstown in the south island of New Zealand. And there was a fantastic vibrant aeroclub there. And it was affordable. It was about a third the amount it would have been in Britain. So I just started doing a few hours. I didn't solo but flying through the southern Alps some of the locals would take me flying and be landing on beaches, doing a few aerobatics and so I had a real taste of it. So aviation is a wonderful flying country, fantastic terrain. And then I moved to Auckland and that's where I started in earnest. So just literally worked my way through a private commercial license, did an instructor rating. But I tell you what I did Chris. I wanted to fly old ones. I wanted to fly stick and rudder tail-draggers. I did an aerobatic rating. You know, so it was I was just sort of I wanted the wider experience of flying. I wasn't really just interested in flying you know, tricycle undercarriage Cessnas and I had no real plan in terms of an airline career. I didn't really want that. I kind of went sideways once I started flying the older ones and again joining the New Zealand warbirds. I'd buy into syndicates. So I bought into my first world war, you know, one was a world war one replica you know, so you could buy into a few hundred and you actually it sort of subsidized your flying and then I and then you know my I was married in New Zealand. I married one of the guys that I met in the New Zealand warbirds and he gave me a share in a T6, you know, a T6 Harvard. So I was the first woman to fly that in New Zealand after world war two. So it was ridiculous. I featured on the news that night. It was like that's crazy, you know, you know, it's just it's an advanced military trainer. So that was that was the most advanced when I ever flew. You know, that was a big radial engine, 550 horsepower retractable retractable undercarriage but great flying in New Zealand, you know, flying with these guys we do the air shows, we do joy rides with the public. So those were really formative years for me but then I cut the rope and came back to England, you know, and it all started all started from scratch again, you know it's quite an elitist thing in this country. It always was and, you know, you've I mean, that's all I did. I just put all of my money into flying, you know, and that's one of the reasons I think I haven't gone a conventional route in life. You know, that was I suppose the price you paid to fly, you know, the price you pay to live the life you want to to live, don't you? So it didn't allow for children and mortgages and all those normal things, you know, I just flew and had aeroplanes. And it's expensive here, that's another it's prohibitive and of course you're also up against the climate. I think that's what I meant to say that we don't really get the weather here. So in Florida, you can fly all day, you know the clouds will come in at the end of the day. And even then, they're these big heads of cloud, you can you can fly around. You get the thunderstorms in the afternoon, the convection and the turbulence and so on. But you're right you get wonderful clear day smooth conditions. So it's fantastic for learning to fly. It's very, very difficult in Britain, you know, even when I came back and I'd be trying to fly a Taigemoth at Cambridge. And I think the first three times I tried to do it fog, rain, crosswinds and it was just like marriage. You just can't consolidate and you can't build your confidence with it. It just makes it so much harder and the other thing that's more difficult is that the airspace is so much more congested. So a private license in this country a significant part of that is really instrument flying. Whereas where I was flying in New Zealand, it was still you know, this is all pre-GPS. I was trained by a World War II navigator, it was all just wind triangles and you know basic navigation. But it was huge terrain, mountains, coasts seas. You know, you could obviously have to go through control zones into controlled airfields. But you were also landing on grass strips and for miles you could fly without having to talk to anybody. So it was terrific flying in that respect. Are you familiar with the term no-rabs? Just to relay on what you're saying, so very congested here in the UK also the legislation governing the whole shebang is the procedural aspect of flying here is much it's much more difficult to fly in this country and it's much less pleasurable. I must admit to be perfectly honest, if I was just flying around the south of England you know, in a way you wouldn't bother to be honest. I feel like I've had such a different experience of flight I don't think I'd bother. The no-rabs scene came around in Florida because you've got say for example you've got farmers or ranchers they've got their land and they literally use an airplane like we would a car. They just want to get around folks it's a vast distances. And the thing is be careful there's these old boys they just don't have a radio in the plane they're not bothered about it they just take off, go to their mates ranch, you know, pick up some bails of hails. They are the cowboys literally aren't they? They're just out there doing their own thing. Well, they're a dying breed because you just don't get away with it really anymore unless you're in the middle of nowhere then you can do it but predominantly any sort of flying in this country even low flying I do fly in parts of the world I've flown very low in my airplane to capture it for the film I might at wherever I went we were also trying to film it so that people could see what it was like to be in an airplane like this flying these distances through all this amazing terrain so I'm down at just a few hundred feet above the deck but you try doing that in Britain you'll have all sorts of complaints and you'll have civil aviation on your back you've broken airspace it's really tricky, it's really difficult Have you always it's the bowing steerman isn't it, it's a biplane is that your favourite craft was there a reason you chose that Lady Heath you might want to explain who she is Well, just to talk about the airplane first and foremost I mean my experience of flying old aeroplanes in New Zealand because America provided most of the primary and advanced trainers for all the allied air forces in World War II like the T6 Harbors and so on so that's really what I was trained on I was trained on American style aeroplanes and in fact the two that I've subsequently owned I had a PT-22 which was a primary trainer a little low wing still the monoplane so I had that based at Shuffleworth for nine years and then of course I had I got my bowing steerman renovated, restored rather, for my Africa flight so there was a generic about flying American aeroplanes so it's good rudders it's all steering on the feet it's good ailerons, good in crosswinds big open cockpits whereas British aeroplanes are much tighter, you get into a spitfire or a chipmunk and they're sort of wrap around they're a little bit claustrophobic lovely in the handling but I just like American aeroplanes if I'm honest and the bowing steerman for me was the dream biplane big radial engine, I love radials as opposed to the British inline engines if you like so the big radial engines, round engines and again just the structure of a biplane all the rigging and the struts, it's classic 1920s technology basically so I just love it's wooden fabric the airframe itself is tubular metal but they're very very strong very robust so I just decided that this would be the ideal aircraft for my expedition up Africa so I went through various convolutions to try and find one rent one, buy one but in the end I had one restored hybrid aviation in Austria Hungary so I found a steerman specialist and he would buy wrecks in America and then restore them to spec so I had some modifications done to mine I had extra fuel tanks put in the top wings which gave me six hours of range I had a slightly modified and modified propeller I had a 300 horsepower like homing engine on it because I just needed the extra power for hot high density altitudes in Africa sometimes you're taking off at 5,000 or 6,000 feet above sea level and you need the extra power to do that with all that fuel on board so I was pretty heavily weighted at times so this was a pretty special airplane I have to say and although it was an American military trainer I wanted it to look British I wanted it to look more period and I wanted it to look more feminine actually because steermans are quite rugged masculine machines so I had mine painted in British sort of British racing green it's like a dark forest green cream wings and then of course I had the Union Jack on the side and of course the name the spirit of Artemis which was my principal sponsor but I wanted that kind of female ethos with it and Artemis was the goddess of the wilderness and wild animals and I thought wow that's perfect so it was the dream machine absolute dream machine very forward to fly very forgiving and very rugged in terms of the pioneer so here you go so I wanted to fly Africa you know I'd seen the film out of Africa years ago the whole love story with Karen Blixman and Dennis Finch but it was the sequence of flying that tiger moth through the rift valley that just electrified me I thought my god that was just the ultimate in this beautiful achingly beautiful romantic kind of setting in Africa and I spent all of 82 in Africa and came back overland in a Bedford truck so I'd had some experience of this but Africa was always the dream to fly that in an open cockpit biplane because of the film but why in the clock on 25 years I got my aeroplane and I learned about the story of Lady Heath she was the first pilot male or female to fly solo from Cape Town back to England and it's a staggering story there's a wonderful book by Lindy Norton it's called Lady Icarus well somebody gave me that book and the story is it just blows you away Chris honestly so talk about an interesting background you know she was basically orphaned as a baby you know her father bludgeoned her mother to death in a drunken fit he ends up in an asylum for the criminally insane for the rest of his life she's brought up by her grandfather and she goes on to be and this is in rural Ireland where she goes on to be a dispatch rider in World War I she's the first woman to get an engineering license she's the first woman to have one of our first female Olympic athletes and she's also the first woman to get a commercial pilot's license so she's there you know her wranging parliament for the vote equal rights but also the right to fly a commercial license so she was a trailblazer in every sense of the word but the high point of her career was this flight up Africa so that's what my flight was about following Lady Heath route up the eastern side of Africa Cape Town back to England and that's what she's remembered for well she's not remembered actually that was the point we were making a film because nobody remembers this woman we remember Amelia Earhart and Amy Johnson nobody remembers Lady Heath so we made a documentary the BBC took that and that screened several times to great reviews but it was Lady Heath's story it was called The Aviatrix and the Lady Who Flew Africa so we were just trying to sort of give her her position in the sun but as this as this iconic modern woman this was this was the example to this next generation you know they need to understand these these people in history you know it's all gone before the people who light the way forward so and when you made your journey did you did you really relate to her experiences did you face the similar sort of challenges yeah absolutely you know once you're in an open cockpit airplane flying low level and you're dealing with weather you're dealing with obviously heat distance what we have I mean there's obviously a big difference you know you're separated by 85 years here so they were flying with no radios none of the kind of bureaucracy that we're dealing with now and they were flying predominantly through British Empire so they could wing their way through all this you know things like engineering support the fuel was there the oil was there so Lady Heath was having a marvellous time of Africa I mean she had her pearls her fur coat she had her tennis racket on board so she had this lovely social time of Africa which is not to detract from you know the physical demands of doing a flight like this you know she had Sunstroke at one point she almost fainted in the cockpit and crash landed in Zimbabwe so she had some hair raising moments and of course flying through weather on the deck in heavy rain and coming back through Europe all of those problems are still the same and weather is still the biggest single issue flying these airplanes so I'm of course flying in antique they were flying the sports planes of their day Lady Heath was doing this in an avro avian Amy Johnson on her flight to to Australia first woman to fly to Australia in 1930 she was flying a gypsy moth so you know I was trying to fly you know fly an airplane of a similar type because that's all I'd ever flown was was historic vintage airplanes for 30 years you know so so that was the kind of irony I'm a bit of an anachronism whereas you know they were flying the sports planes of their day and probably would have thought I was mad flying in something open cockpit when I could go in something modern but the disadvantage is now Chris flying in a sort of post 9-11 world you know the cost to do this the bureaucracy the security issues the airspace you know so that's the stuff we're up against now and of course you have to be totally self-sufficient you've got getting fuel for an airplane like this you carry all the oil you have to carry all your spares and tooling and so on so that was just some of the logistical aspects behind these flights you have to be totally self-sufficient because there's nothing there for you wherever you go although they charge as if you were a modern airliner can I say what were the sort of distances between legs or of the legs around 350 miles to 450 how long does that take you well I'm going at about 90 miles an hour so I would be flying on one leg generally we'd plan the legs sometimes we'd fly two legs in a day so you know those were with a fuelling stop so I've got 380 nautical miles range in no wind conditions in my airplane so I have to keep landing and fuelling generally we'd work the legs out at about 300 nautical miles so you could be sitting in the cockpit for say four hours to do that depends on the wind if you've got a head wind obviously your slower tail wind you're a bit faster but you're very prone to the conditions the weather conditions and can you eat or drink during this time you can Chris but you can't go to the loom I that was the question I really wanted to ask on behalf of all our female friends out there I'm sure they were busting do you see what I did there folks busting I'm sure they were dying to ask that well yeah so you've got to be a little bit careful you need to keep hydrating so obviously I'd have bottles of water and muesli bars I mean I don't like to eat in the airplane because I don't want crumbs in it which sounds a bit precious taildrago which is in this you know it's on the ground it's almost in the takeoff position so all the crumbs roll to the end of the tail and you never get them out again so I was a bit careful not easy to eat crisps in an open cockpit environment you know with all the sort of you know the dynamic air flow gone even sandwiches are quite tricky but yeah so when it comes to the loom you've just got to be careful so there are times when I've literally leapt out of the airplane and you know crouch down behind the wheel just dying to go to the loom and can I say the pioneers had two, three times the range I did so when Amy was flying she had about 11 hours range as did Lady Heath so they were going to the loom in the airplane they were relieving themselves and you know some of them had little trap doors or nappies or however but it's not really recorded what they did but I assume you know and of course travelling in space you have sooths that remove it all it's just all sucked away but no I just held on in great discomfort at times what were the ground crews like you know it was all very very good on the ground you know because you have to use the handlers at the airport so in general actually really very good you know there was the problem we had was within our own crew to be honest a four cent logistics manager we had to position fuel into places but there were just complications all the way down the track stuff that was you know not properly organised and you know when you're moving a big crew we had I say big we had two aircraft so I had my Stearman and we had a Cessna Caravan but there were eight crew two aircraft now you're moving through this pretty quickly and you're filming and you're doing interviews and there's media so there's quite a program around this so you need things to slot into place you know to operate efficiently so we had problems with that Chris to be honest which caused a lot of conflict and just drained a lot of energy out of us because these were long exhausting days you know we're flying two legs we'd be going from six in the morning till midnight sometimes up again at dawn the next day so it was exhausting and how did the aeroplane perform the Stearman was just brilliant absolutely brilliant didn't miss a beat so coped with the heat you know just having said that I had a brilliant engineering support AWIL Grinch who restored the aeroplane for me came on and supported this aeroplane every day he was working on it so you've got you know you're doing putting a lot of time on the engine there's a lot of vibration you need to check everything every night all the screws, the wires, the bolts you know the fuel lines the oil lines etc you need fantastic engineering support to just keep the aeroplane going actually is it that particular engine is it well known for being reliable one of the most reliable aeroplane engines ever built they are boat anchors of engines very very strong it's an old fashioned mechanical you know nine cylinder radial engine so it's all you know you can work on it and then it was quite amusing actually Africans response to this because they'd never seen an aeroplane like it and they thought I was mad you know it was like you can't fly this it it doesn't look it's not going to work because all the cylinders are open it's sort of open engineering but it looks you know it looks too basic they thought it looked broken there was one time I was up there and a hit turbulence oh god yeah and like you say there's a very small planes folks you know the assessment it was like go-karts in the sky really and suddenly the planes just doing what turbulence is it's dropping and then I'm getting I tell you what if I could have stepped out of there at that moment I absolutely I feared for my life do you have a kind of thing going on in the back of your mind is your what if it goes what if it goes wrong I mean you have turbulence is terrifying I have to say and you do get thrown around actually I once had an incident in New Zealand where I was instructing so I'm in the right hand seat and I've got a student flying the aeroplane on approach into the airfield so we're at about 600 feet on the approach and suddenly again just the sort of turbulence it was funny enough there were cumulonimbus clouds there was a thunderstorm a few miles away and it was obviously turbulence related with that horrific down drafts but suddenly the plane just it's vertical and this was like a vertical turbulence so wind shear so suddenly we were lurching down we hit the roof and then slam the other way and it's so shocking your hands come off the controls it's completely out of control basically so the student is here flying it and I was thinking bloody hell you know so I just I took the controls powered it up and cleaned the flap up and went round because that's what you're frightened you're obviously on a fairly slow airspeed to come into land and that's the risk is that you stall it so just powered off clean the flap up went round and came into land and we got out and I was shaking I was absolutely shaking but the student said God that was terrific you know thank God you so he thought it was really exciting but I was petrifying absolutely petrifying because you know that's the sort of stuff that throws you into the ground and it's just out of control there's nothing you can do with that and that does occasionally happen these microbursts that you hear about it's just as bad as that in the Stearman but I've had a lot of turbulence in it but you just have to sort of hope you've got the altitude obviously and try and find smoother air and just press on really just tighten the belt hunker down in the sea and fly through it and hope it gets hope for some smoother air ahead but isn't that like life itself first Yes when it's just you though it's always good to share with someone else isn't it well listen often I had people with me but you know it's it's one of the least fun aspects of flying is turbulence but there you go it's just actually sometimes it can be fun if it's a sort of billowing turbulence it's almost like being you know you get these convective waves in Africa flying over the Sahara desert and if it's a bit like being at sea on a boat you can rise up in a thermal and then you'd come surfing down the other side of the wave really so it was fun too Are you familiar with a gentleman called Steve Fossett or a late gentleman Yes I had the absolute pleasure to meet Steve here in Plymouth when he he'd got the world record for sailing around the world in the fastest time in a yacht crew I think the boat was called the playstation or it was at one time in its career and I remember I remember hearing about Steve because it was him and Richard Branson wasn't it that we're trying to fly around the world in balloons Bloons he was that's right a balloonist as well Whereas Richard Branson had all this money to spend and he had this luxurious basket more than a basket folks but you know this capsule in which he could control his balloon Steve would just get up there literally in a basket with a little tiny gas heater and he would try and go around the world and I think they both both failed several times but like I said I met Steve when he came into Plymouth and it was quite upsetting when he went do you remember he went missing in his light aircraft did yeah there was some debate that it was a suicide wasn't it wow there was all of that and the search went on for ages and it was kind of acknowledged that in the area where he went missing which was somewhere in the American wilderness from what I remember the mountains wasn't it the high Sierra some yes yes and it was kind of acknowledged like if you go missing there the chances of finding you even with the technology assasTER is very minimum it's just so vast but they they did find his plane because they found his credit cards and they found you know it was a couple of years after oh it was a long time after you know it was a long time they I think the theory was he'd hit some downdraft basically yep again you know what mountain flying that's one of the hazards you've got to be so careful with that and not to fly in the lee of mountains where you get the sink you know that sometimes is greater than your ability to climb out of it so lots of accidents lots of flying accidents around turbulence and wind shear and downdrafts Cape Town to was it Goodwood that you flew into Cape Town to Goodwood it was I think is that where Boltby is I can't London to Australia and across the USA can you tell us a bit a bit about those trips yeah well the Australia flight which I did in 2015-16 so it was sort of 18 months after Africa so again just building the more sponsorship and really developing the outreach program that went with it so with Boeing on board and Boeing came on board as my first sponsor because of course it was a Boeing Stearman but they were absolutely critical to getting this airplane around the world through some quite difficult countries and of course building the outreach and the Britain is great campaign which is Britain PLC so we were able to connect across the world everywhere we flew from schools colleges driving this kind of female program really but I was following Amy's flight to Australia so Amy Amy was trying to break the record back in 1930 which stood at 15 days so that had been done by an Australian called Bert Hinckler so Amy again had had quite a bit of upheaval and a bit of personal tragedy in her life and she then finds aviation again gets her engineering license as well so she was a very good engineer and she sets off with less than 100 hours in her logbook to try and break this world record now her friends and family thought it was a suicide mission and in some respects it was there's no doubt about it I think even Amy didn't care about whether she came back or not you know she'd had a broken romance a devastating romance her sister committed suicide nine months before that so there was a lot of emotional issues in the background Did you do these tests this morning? Yes I did a complete overhaul of this yesterday. What was my pressure on the well? I feel a burst there is that? Right she's alright now. Will you hang on the throttle I'll swing her? Yes. So Amy sets off in her gypsy moth Jason and 19 days later she arrives in Darwin but this is for my money it's probably one of the greatest solo achievements in history I bring messages from the people of England to the people of Australia and I should be very very happy if this flight of man can bring together people so far apart but so near together and in good feelings, fellowship and friendship and everything except marriage Just one her lack of experience all she'd done prior to that was fly 200 miles up the English coast from London to Hull but she sets off with a packet of sandwiches her toolkit three people to see her off at Croydon hundreds of thousands by the time she gets to Australia but she basically she has about four crashes on the way so she does force landing she flips the airplane she ends up in ditches she gets stuck in monsoons it is the most amazing story you know so that's obviously you can't replicate that that's not what we were trying to do parts of this I couldn't go through the Middle East of course there's wars were through Syria, Iraq which was where her route took her so I had to divert south through Saudi Arabia and so on and come up through the Gulf and then picked up her track in Pakistan but yeah all sorts of adventures in the modern age with as I said flying in this post 9-11 world intensely bureaucratic lots of military areas and lots of procedures but gosh we had some fantastic fantastic access you know through Boeing and through so we made India the kind of center piece of the flight I had I had wonderful insurance on my airplane with GIC re so because of again the long history that England has with India I thought you know so I made that the focal point of it so visited a lot of schools around there so that was in fact the most inspiring part of the trip for me apart from the flying which was beyond anything but to go and talk to these girls you know who were up against all sorts of social restrictions and I mean right across across the Middle East in Saudi Arabia in Jordan in Pakistan in India to talk to these girls and to see their enthusiasm for this but so difficult so difficult for them really just to even education never mind flying but gosh it was just tremendous and I hope we captured some of that from the documentary when you landed in Oz did you meet those bloody Aussies and just want to jump back in the plane and fly home again but can I say the Australians were fantastic it was like being back in the 1930s because we had a rather bad incident in Indonesia we got detained there as they sort of claim that support aircraft had flown illegally through a military area it wasn't the case we had a signed authorized flight plan that we sort of got caught between the civilian air traffic controllers who authorised the flight plan and the military who were just paranoid about things in their airspace and filming and so on so we ran into a wall of problems in Indonesia they ended up detaining the support crew there so that was my it was a Pilatus my cameraman so the boys had a pretty bad time there we flew on in the Stearman AWOL came with me and we flew on in the Stearman and now putting motor fuel in the Stearman because we had to leave all the support the tooling, the spares we were carrying actually fuel for the Stearman in the support aircraft as well so after that I was actually putting motor fuel in it now fortunately the engine runs on that but we were racing and everywhere we went we were confronted by the secret police in Indonesia so this was a it was pretty traumatic actually it was pretty frightening so I was so relieved to get out of Indonesia and the Australians were great because they allowed us to come into Truscott which is in the Northwest Territories it was an old submarine base during an airfield in World War II so they allowed us a sort of non-official immigration entry because I didn't have the range to fly to Darwin you know we came in from Coupang into Truscott refuelled and then flew 400 miles up to Darwin to process properly and of course that was also Amy's landfall into Darwin she came in from East Timor which we couldn't we couldn't use again for political reasons so it's a much more political world now much more difficult to do this bureaucratically a little bit of an aside I ran the marathon of the sands two weeks ago was it three weeks ago this 150km desert race it's supposed to be the quote unquote toughest foot race on the planet and it I mean like really thought about it probably what would be a lot of people's crown in achievement I don't know if it hasn't sunk in or whether I'm just a bit spoiled for adventure how has it been for you and what's the reception been like well I think you do these amazing flights I mean nothing like the physical duress you're talking about I mean one of the differences having driven I've done quite a bit of you know participated in vintage car rallies you know from Peking to Paris and having done the Overland trip in Africa in a Bedford truck heck it's a lot harder driving it on those roads you know and deserts and dry river beds you know just the physical duress of it and camping out in the bush you know five months much harder to drive it it's relatively easy I have to say you know you're sitting comfortably you're in the most beautiful airplane in the world flying through breathtaking scenery I mean you know sometimes look these are long hot flights you get dehydrated it's tiring you know you've got a lot of sun exposure you're in the wind I had sort of sunburn dehydration it is exhausting but nothing like as difficult as driving it I have to say but afterwards you know I look back on the flying nothing will ever compare to that I think I was on the roof of my life flying these expeditions so exciting I only have to close my eyes and I'm back in that airplane with the you know the sun flashing off the wings you know that the singing of the wires and the wind it's just the most for me that's my bliss is being in that airplane so nothing compares to that I mean you're right things are slightly anticlimactic I suppose when you have that degree of fun and adventure and excitement and and danger and you know let's not forget that you know because I did crash in America here I was following the pioneers and following the airmail route there and and you know the early airmail pilots call themselves the suicide club of the first 40 of them 31 of them were killed so that's how dangerous the flying was and then I end up having an engine failure myself in the high desert in Arizona and and you know crashing the steam and cartwheeling in and wrecking the airplane I mean I was fine and Abel was with me we were fine but you know the risk is always there and I tend to I tend to I suppose minimize the risk I mean you know it's a calculated risk but at almost any time you know this this can kill you if you get it wrong or if you have an engine failure at the worst possible time you know out over the sea or out over mountains you know certainly flying in Pakistan and it was interesting because Amy wrote in her diary flying over these mountains she was terrified these razor sharp mountains I you know flying over exactly the same but also filming it I was transfixed by the beauty and the savagery of this but also on some level thinking bloody hell if the engine goes here I'm not going to survive this you know so there was a few of those moments you're always thinking it Chris but you sort of think you know it's not going to happen is it's not going to happen when you crash did you did you know you were going to make a crash landing or was it I was this was on takeoff so you know as a pilot you'll know it's the worst time you can have an engine failure I see I'm taking off it it was 5000 feet above sea level okay it was Winslow in Arizona and if you do the calculations for the performance altitude for your for your engine okay which is what's called density altitude it was equivalent to taking off at 7000 feet above sea level okay so already on an aspirated engine you've only got half your engine power this is an airplane that will only go up to 10,000 feet so you've got half your engine power on takeoff okay so the how that translates is you just have a longer ground roll okay to get the speed and and it's a careful climb out because you've only got really half power alright so it's a gentle climb out so that's what happened I'd taken off climbing out gently only got to maybe 100 100 feet and suddenly lost 300 rpm on the engine enough to stop it flying at that density altitude if I'd been taking off at sea level it probably it would have been okay I could have come round and just land in and it would have been alright but you know given the parameters on the day it was enough to stop it flying so suddenly loss of power it just starts coming down there's power lines ahead I just turned it gingerly through about 30 degrees towards the open desert and flew it into the ground I didn't have time to do anything I mean I'd lean the mixture out a bit to compensate for the for the altitude so I just push the mixture to fall rich thinking oh it's fuel immediately my thought was it's fuel and yeah flew it into the ground summer salted but of course you know the big structure of the wooden wings just absorbed the energy of the crash you're sitting in the cockpit sort of in the middle of all this as it rotates around you so we were absolutely fine I didn't even have a whiplash I had a little cut on my ankle and as I you know the stick slammed into my leg on impact so I was you know I had a bruised thigh but it was it was you know you know can I say I didn't think you know somebody had said to me right at the outset look this is a very strong aeroplane and understand if you can get this within 30 degrees you know coming into the ground you'll survive it so that was always in the back of my mind you know so I didn't think this was a I suppose it was a near-death experience but I never thought it was going to kill me I wasn't overwhelmed with terror I was just hacked off if I'm honest hacked off because it was just there was nothing you could do you're just along for the ride at this point and then it's like you know it's like being in a washing machine basically when you hit the ground dirt dust noise you know horrible yes and I bet it's incredibly disappointing and quite expensive I would imagine I just I mean I love this aeroplane this is this is my the love of my life and to see it like that I just I mean I suppose you go into shock I just couldn't really take it in if I'm honest the devastation was horrific fuel dripping out because that was the next thing you think oh is the whole lot going to go up you know burst into flames and of course the emergency services didn't come for about 45 minutes I suppose we were you know a mile or so from the airfield in the desert but the boys were circling overhead in the Cessna you know we had that was our that was our camera man and support crew that were there filming it so you know so they could see we were right I just got up and gave them the thumbs up and then waited waited for the rescue people to come and they just took took the wreck back to Winslow and I had it you know it was then taken to Phoenix they did checks on it you know they just cleared out the carburettor put you fuel in it and got the engine running again so it was pretty clear what happened it was contaminated fuel they just blocked the carburettor so because there were no injuries no no deaths I airlifted the the wreck back to to Hungary back to Awald in Hungary and the boys rebuilt it and a couple of months later I was I was at the Farnborough air show for Boeing's centenary so it was a very it was a it was a remarkable it was a remarkable year really but yeah we were back in the air not long afterwards so press on regardless Chris you know the you know the attitude crack on what I did want to ask is the the Stearman is is that used to tooling in crop dusting yeah it was tens of thousands of these aeroplanes were built as primary trainers for World War II so they were built in Wichita I was in 1942 one but yeah after the war so you know it was every pilot trained on on Stearmans in America and of course they were all over the world as well I might have but after World War II they became crop dusters and they would then modify them put bigger engines they'd have they'd have tanks in the front cockpit because you fly them from the rear cockpit so they're not even recognizable and that's what happened to mine mine was a crop duster for years and then was crashed in the 80s and then Awald bought the wreck you know he'd go and buy wrecks in America and then and then he restores them on commission this is a workhorse of an airplane they're also used for skydiving and barnstorming and of course you know the wonderful formation team here the Vic Norman setup those were those are all Stearmans with the girls on the wing that the four-ship formation which is a fantastic a fantastic but that's what they were used for these these are show aeroplanes so they're tremendously versatile and just beautiful yes well I have I think I'm pretty sure we're talking about the same airplane but when I did my test there were a couple these beautiful craft out there at Fort Pierce and they'd been sold to I think I might have this wrong I think they were Argentinian farmers and they these two pilots had rocked up at the the airport to fly these things back down south so from Florida you know, guessing across the Caribbean into South America and there was a couple of interesting things there the first one is they returned within about three hours of taking off and I'd become friends with one of the pilots and I said what's happened he said Chris I haven't got the skills I haven't got the skills to fly it and that was it I'm not sure what particular skills he was referring to whether it was an instrument thing or something but the other thing I got from that is they say that these crop dusting pilots are some of the most acrobatic in the world they can just put this plane down at the beginning of a field drop there I guess it's fertilizer get to the end of the field come up do this acrobatic turn and then come straight down in again for the next you just do a wing over straight back down so it's very low level you're carrying huge loads flying into the sun and there's lots of crashes but they're fantastic pilots and pilots operating like that it's phenomenal flying talking about phenomenal flying I took a phenomenal writing because it's a bit of a journey trace writing a book how's your experience been well I did mine over Covid it's pretty rare in life that everything shuts down I was there on my own here in London it was the perfect isolation in which to do it so I just started and wrote the first tranche working every day 7-8 hours a day and then there was a second tranche as the next lockdown started so for me Covid was productive because I couldn't normally do that I'm just not writing is quite a solitary it's a solitary business isn't it you need a lot of isolation and a lot of undisturbed time so I had a good Covid in that regard yes do you know Sir did you ever run off I do yes I know ran fines yeah he's a good old chap isn't he oh I think he's just remarkable I've been to his talks I've spoken to his trans globe foundation he's a friend and he's just a legend yes and that deadpan understated low-key he's just amazing and believe me the hardships that he has endured I did once ask him when you consider that you've lost fingers and digits there seems to be a high degree of masochism in what you do I said are you sort of getting something out of that is there something perverse driving you in all this but actually he's so prosaic about it there was nothing else I could do in life but he just plays it all down the hardship that he's subjected himself to is beyond what most people can conceive I've never had anything remotely like that at all and I wouldn't put myself down in these remote polar regions with those sorts of things I really take my hat off to him I think he's extraordinary he talked about how the BBC camera him and drowned on the first week of the expedition and he says great loss are only the BBC but I contacted him recently and I said Saran would you do me a favour would you come on my podcast I said because you're a person that's been all the way around the globe the trans-globe expedition I remember reading his book and I said because there's a big massive growing movement of people that believe the earth is flat called flat earth theory and he wrote back to me what he's the second I've got another friend who was planning a cross Antarctica expedition and I said I said to him I said Bas what do you think of flat earth theory and he said what I said flat earth theory it's like this theory that the earth's flat excuse my French folks where you went fuck off right it's been around for a while it's been around for a while in various guises we never got to the moon that was just a simulation there's so many it's a complex we look at them a lot on this show some of them are bonafide some of them are just chucked in there to muddy the waters I think I just think it's fascinating that the world what's his accolade what's the world's most renowned explorer and that when I put this to him he just didn't have a clue he just laughed for that kind of nonsense but the thing about Ran is not only has he done these expeditions all of his life just to sustain that effort year in year out but he's also raised something like 20 million for charity so I don't think there's anybody quite like him I think he's just won out the bag isn't he yes but let's give some all credit to you Tracy you've you're not one for holding back either are you well on a rather more modest level I think I had sort of 10 years of expeditions and I hope I've still got one left in me but no I could never have done a whole life around that just organizing and raising the money for it that alone is just such a demanding thing it's the straightforward part to be honest for the most part it's actually getting everything in place and that's I think the difficult part and I think Ran would probably echo that although he's now so renowned of course that I'm sure people as you'd say from the outset he would never pay crew if people wanted to come with him he would select them handpick them I wish I'd be more careful with my crew selection believe me but it was interesting to read about his comments about crew and the dynamics and psychology of a crew yeah he's really had some experiences there hasn't he with where it's all gone a bit wrong yes do you experience a sense of euphoria once you actually take off and all of the planning and the fundraising and the promotion that's all done now right I'm on my mission and as your wheels take off the runway that's the point you know as soon as your wheels are off you're airborne and climbing up elation I think it's beyond happiness it's just it's just another world and you know then suddenly you're looking down on everything and you have this wonderful objectivity with it as well this perspective on everything on life on the terrain you know so I yeah that was the best part for me really just taking off and being in that aeroplane then of course the minute you land again and it all start again all the ground stuff all the paperwork all the cost etc etc you know and what's the next plan Tracy anything in the pipeline Chris the next plan having launched the book so that's out that launched at the end of March I'm just getting the film finished that's been a long process interrupted by Covid that I've been funding all that so it's been a long difficult these things are just so difficult to do to privately make a film like this but we're putting the finishing touches to that this week and my hope is that that is released by the end of the summer say what's the name it's Bird so it's Bird the book and it's Bird the film and there will be a musical to follow after that so Bird is the word the film is it about all your trips or one in particular no it's about all of them it's the global you know so there's a bit of Africa, Australia, America the two trips to America because of course after I crashed that took the ship the stem and back to Los Angeles and then reflux America again so two attempts at America so it's all of it and it's the pioneering story as well so it's Lady Heath it's Amy Johnson and it's also Amelia Earhart so I really focus the story around the three the three most iconic female aviators for me incredible incredible Tracy do you have like at any sort of social media that people follow you on or is oh I need to get organised it's being done by the publisher at the moment but I need to crank this up I'd rather disengage I've never engaged with social media but I know that's obviously the world we now operate and that's how people communicate so I need to actually start doing that because there's loads of material I mean you know there's loads of stuff going on that would be great to share with people yeah exactly I'm only saying it from the perspective of sharing there'll be people across the board that will be fascinating in all aspects of your life and your story and your flying and your planes but I only wondered because we'd put your links below the video but as it is folks we're going to put a link for Tracy's book um grab a copy yep it's uh it's out there bird is out there so listen thank you this has been really true unreal I get to chat about something that I really enjoyed doing which was flying I haven't done a lot of it Tracy I just wanted to say that I've done that in my life you know I I know a bit about that now how many hours have you got now oh gosh not whatever the hours it was to pass the thing I had something like that um I was a little bit longer flying solo than most because some people fly solo after sort of 10 hours I was about 18 and I was just new to I had no background in aerodynamics I hadn't studied so I rocked up in America Tracy with no experience just like I want to learn to fly and and I honestly had this the only thing I could relate it to obviously was driving a car because that's the only other machine really that I'd have ever taken charge of that and you know a motorbike and I honestly didn't get the aerodynamics that when you come into land you're a bird you're flaring like this and you're you're slowing your descent through the air and then you're landing on this cushion just like a bird when it lands on the lake and you see that that beautiful motion I didn't know that I thought you're kind of like up here driving a car sort of thing but in the air and when you want to go down you just point it down and drive it on yeah like the juicer hazard and you just go yeah and yeah and of course I was failing every landing and my bloody rubbish instructor just could not understand that he hadn't taught me anything he just taught me none of this he's just like you're under a lot of stress and you're trying not to panic and you're listening to him but it's completely counter-intuitive to what your brain is saying which is you just go down like that anyway I was very fortunate there was an Austrian guy on my course yes he was called Appie very very decent chap anyway he actually failed his he failed his exam which is kind of like oh my god if he's failed it what am I you know one of those kind of scenarios but I came back to the the shared apartment we have one day and I'm just like throwing down my study books and he's like what's the matter he's blooming landing Appie I just can't get it he said did he tell you to flare I'm like I didn't know what he was talking about no he said that's why you're struggling it was the same with me Appie said he said Chris you've got to pull back on the stick you're trying to land on this cushion of air ah right after that moment Tracy it all made sense but have my instructor taught me anything about no and and that's why there was this this disconnect between me and the instructor is he he knew what he's talking about I only know that like the juicer has a thing that's in my head and once I got that then it's it's a it's a different story isn't it then then I could land on the runway literally not put the nose wheel down just stay on the back wheels go the length and then and then do a go around it it was I just felt ah I get it now not just the landing but I get flying I get what it's about it's not like driving a car in the sky it's there's a bit of an S in that final touchdown point but you're right we used to say don't you know try and just hold off hold off as the washes away try not to land yes way to achieve even a landing but it's the hard it's the hardest thing for anybody I'm just sorry you've had a lousy experience with it all of us at any stage can make a lousy landing so that's that's flying it can be terribly leveling in that regard you need to get out and just think oh dear god how is that possible I can do that now in the steering just catch a bit of sidewind or sing whatever whatever for whatever reason you know you'll get about something damn it you know it's been absolutely just amazing talking to you thank you so so much I wish you all the best with your book and the film links below folks for the book really ah look forward to welcoming you back on the podcast and we can chat again at another time probably just covered covered half of it but stay on the on the zoom so I can thank you properly after I push the record off but for the purposes of the recording huge congratulations thank you for everything that you um you know you've done in the area of women's rights and and just getting out there and living your life and as we say the name of the podcast bought buying the t-shirt thank you so much Chris pleasure welcome so I hope it inspires some of you to what I did which is get down to the news agent grab a flying magazine have a look in the back in the adverts and call up a flight school you don't have to commit anything just call them up have a chat and you don't have a trial flight absolutely do it do it much love friends see you soon