If you’re ever in Vancouver BC and need a gift for someone...

I recently returned from a trip to Vancouver, BC and stayed with some friends. They were very kind and accommodating and took me everywhere I wanted to go. So on the day I left, I decided to give them a gift for being such good hosts. My friend Anne loves flowers, and so a flower arrangement from a florist in Vancouver seemed like the ideal solution. Well, to be frank they lived quite close to a Vancouver florist called Flowers on 1^st, so it was a no-brainer.

Isn't this a cool logo?

I ended up not having time to visit the florist before they dropped me off at the airport. Fortunately this place had a website so I was able to scope out everything they had on offer. In addition to flower arrangements they had gift baskets with a variety of chocolates, so I have to admit I vacillated between flowers and chocolates. Finally I settled on the flowers. They make deliveries to anywhere in Vancouver so that’s pretty cool.

I could have made the order for the flowers directly form their website, but since they have a toll free number I just called them right up and spoke to them in person. The clerk I spoke to was friendly, the order was paced with no problem. And best of all...I was told a free order of chocolates would come with the flowers. I knew that Harry (that’s Anne’s husband) would love that.

Long story short, I was quite pleased with the service of this florist in Vancouver and can recommend them to everyone!

Their site is:
www.floristvancouver.com

Sqn Ldr Selase Agbenyefia: First female helicopter pilot in West Africa

From Ghana Web: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=308758

For close to 35 years, being a combat pilot in the Ghana Air Force has been a ‘no go’ area for ambitious young women who have the desire to ply their trade in that sector of the Ghana Armed Forces.

The first two female pilots who served during the Nkrumah regime left the Air Force after the 1966 coup.

However, the resilience and determination of a young woman, who had displayed great interest to train as a combat pilot 13 years ago, has changed all that.

Her dream would have nearly been aborted if she had not insisted that, “it was the Air Force that I chose because I wanted to be a pilot.”

Squadron Leader Selase Agbenyefia, who completed Sixth Form at the Mawuli School in Ho in 1996, applied to join the Ghana Air Force after she had watched a documentary on a female air traffic controller, which really impacted on her life.

“After watching the film, I asked myself why I couldn’t also pursue a career in the aviation industry. I discussed this great ambition with one of my brother’s friends who was a serviceman.”

According to Sqn Ldr Agbenyefia, his brother’s friend gave her the necessary encouragement and told her that she stood a better chance of becoming an Air Force pilot, especially with her subject combination, Physics, Geography and Maths.

With this motivation, Sqn Ldr Agbenyefia responded to an application by the Ghana Armed Forces for enlistment and stated her preference programme as the Ghana Air Force.

However, when the applicants were invited to the Burma Hall in Accra for the selection process, she realised that she had been pushed from the Air Force to the Army.

“I was not pleased with the change and approached one of the officers and told him I had applied specifically for the Air Force but my name had been changed to the Army. The officer told me, ‘You see that thick tall man over there, go and speak to him and if he agrees, the change would be effected.’”

That officer then was Maj General Joseph Narh Adinkrah, the former Army Commander and then Officer in charge of enlistment of officer cadets.

“Initially, I looked at the huge frame of the officer and got frightened because I hear at the time that the military did not tolerate anything that should not be tolerated. I, however, mustered courage and went to him and told him my problem. He looked at me then said ‘well, the Air Force is not for women, and could be the reason why your course option was changed.’ I insisted that it was the Air Force that I selected and that if I would not have the opportunity to train as a pilot then I would opt out. Maj Gen Adinkrah looked at me, checked my application and I believe he was overwhelmed by my confidence and asked that I should be included in the Air Force list.”

This was how Sqn Ldr Agbenyefia traversed to become the first female Helicopter pilot in the Ghana Air Force and the whole of the West African sub region in 48 years, who has flown all kinds of aircrafts— from L-29 fighter jets trainers to, Agusta -109 light attack helicopters, Bell 412, and MI-17 Helicopters.

She is also the first female military pilot to have participated in United Nations mission.

After that trailblazing feat, it took close to 10 years before four other ladies have joined the Air Force as pilots.

Beginning of training

After the completion of the selection process, 20 of them were airlifted to Takoradi where they were introduced to flying for three months and grading to check whether one had the aptitude to fly.

After that exercise, the number was scaled down to 15 and they were transferred to the Ghana Military Academy (GMA) at Teshie in Accra where they went through rigorous military training for seven months.

After the training period at GMA, the group went back to Takoradi to prepare for further training in the United States where they went through Basic Flight Training for eight months.

The group later returned to Ghana with their licence as Qualified Professional Pilots. She later obtained a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration ( Finance Option) from the University of Ghana, Legon, in addition to a post graduate certificate in Public Administration from GIMPA.

Air experience

According to Sqn Ldr Agbenyefia, she was very apprehensive the first time she was in the air, but she kept it to herself. She said her first personal experience in the cockpit was when she flew the L29 Basic Fighter Jet Trainer in September 1998 in Takoradi.

She said she was in the jet with her instructor, Air Commodore Philip Ayisa, now the Base Commander in Tamale.

“Air Commodore Ayisa was calm by my side and he kept reassuring me. He taught me the basic principles in flying. “In fact, when I took off and was in the air I just could not believe it was me, the young girl from Ho, in the air. It was unbelievable. After that experience, initial apprehension and excitement, flying became a normal routine for me.”

Family’s reaction

Sqn Ldr Agbenyefia said her mother was against her enlistment into the Ghana Air Force, but her daddy, a former educationist of blessed memory, always gave her the much needed support and encouragement.

According to her, the mother always kept praying that she would not make the grade and be dropped. However, eventually, when she made it, she was very proud of her military feat just the same way her siblings also felt.

She said her family’s joy was manifested at the Wings Parade held in Takoradi to confer the wing as pilot to them after they had returned from the US in 2001.

Work experience

Since graduation, Sqn Ldr Agbenyefia has been flying regularly from the smaller machine to bigger machines after her turbine transition. She started first as a co-pilot then graduated to be the Captain of the aircraft.

She explained that the categorisation was based on skills and proficiency and the number of hours one had flown. So far, she had made an average of 1800 hours and considering her age and experience she qualifies to be a captain on all machines that she flies.

Sqn Ldr Agbenyefia has now specialised in helicopter and has flown within Ghana and to many remote locations where there were no airfields and no runways.

She had the best of flying experience in Cote d’ Ivoire, where she did a lot of medical evacuations, troop extraction and insertion, armed reconnaissance flights during the peak of the Ivorian crises.

Initially, she engaged in a lot of VIP flights, including flying ministers of state, Members of Parliament, chief executives, politicians with diverse backgrounds.

According to Sqn Ldr Agbenyefia, when some of these people who joined her flight got to know that she was the one in charge they were filled with apprehension and disbelief initially; they thought she was a flight attendant and “when they see me in the cockpit they feel uncomfortable but later they come back to me to confess after I had given them a smooth flight and now accept me and acknowledge my prowess.”

She is grateful to her male colleagues whom she described as very supportive and always ready to see her succeed in her career. Also, the Air Force top hierarchy have also supported her in a bid to bring about Gender parity in the Air Force.

However, she said there were still some male chauvinists, those who do not believe in women making it in a male dominated fields.

“It has been my determination to prove such people wrong and that is what I have set myself to do. I have succeeded in diffusing that tendency all these years.”

Turbulence in the air

Sqn Ldr Agbenyefia said she had encountered turbulence on several occasions and described it as a “bad experience.”

She maintained that once the pilot was in charge, there was no need to panic. “If the passengers panic why should the pilot also panic? At least you know your capabilities and that of the machine and how far to push it. It is just an uncomfortable situation and that is what we were trained to do — deal with tensed situations.” “I have also gone through emergency situations in the air where the aircraft develops mechanical faults, but the split second decisions you make will save you from catastrophe and as scary as it may be God has seen me through it all”.

General aviation in peril

I hope everyone who has an interest in learning to be a pilot is keeping track of what is going on with our politicians today. We need your help to make sure general aviation is affordable for a long time to come!

Chicago Air Races 1930 - cover with Earhart Autograph

Click on the image to see it full size!

Report on Collecting Amelia Earhart

I've been picking up quite a few gems on covers at Ebay. The envelopes with her signature are out of my reach, but there are several contemporary commemorative cachets of her achievements that are available and that I've been picking up. I'm going to be sharing them in a display at my local library next year.

Female IAF pilots cleared to fly while pregnant

From the Times of Israel:  http://www.timesofisrael.com/female-iaf-pilots-cleared-to-fly-while-pregnant/#ixzz2r9KfUDR7

 

A decade and a half after the first woman graduated from the Israel Air Force’s prestigious flight school, the IAF has, after years of deliberation, opened the skies to pregnant pilots and navigators, the air force quarterly magazine reported.

 

“In 1995 the first female cadets arrived at the flight school and since then the IAF has gone quite a ways toward integrating women,” said Lt. Col. Dr. Yifat Ehrlich, the commander of the IAF’s flight medical unit. “There are combat airwomen now and their needs must be addressed.” 

The first woman to fly in the IAF was Zahara Levitov, a Palmach fighter who moved to the US during the British Mandate period, studied medicine at Columbia University and trained as a pilot in California. When the War of Independence broke out, she returned to Israel and flew combat missions during the conflict until a fatal plane crash in August 1948.

Two years later, Yael Rom became the first woman pilot to graduate from the newly founded IAF Flight School. In 1956, during the Suez War, she co-piloted the lead plane that dropped the Paratroops at the mouth of the Mitla Pass, deep in the Sinai Desert.

But at around the same time, while the IAF was establishing itself as a true air force, it stopped accepting female cadets. Only in 1994 did Alice Miller, a trained civilian pilot and an officer in the IAF, appeal to the High Court of Justice to break the gender discrimination.

In 1995, against the wishes of Maj. Gen. Herzl Bodinger, the commander of the IAF at the time, the Court ruled that the IAF could not bar candidates on the basis of gender alone.

Miller was found unfit to enroll in the highly competitive course. But others quickly followed in her footsteps. In December 1998 Sari Rahat of Raanana, an F-16 navigator, became the first woman to graduate from the course. In 2001, Roni Zuckerman, the granddaughter of two of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Antek Zuckerman and Zvia Lubetkin, became the first woman to graduate as a fighter pilot. She nearly took top honors in the course and was picked to fly in an elite F-16 squadron.

Roughly 35 female pilots have finished the course since it began re-accepting women. The IAF would not release numbers of active female pilots but noted that two more graduated the course in December.

In the past all female pilots were grounded for the duration of their pregnancies. Starting in 2014, transport plane pilots will be allowed to fly until the 25^th week of pregnancy, the IAF quarterly reported, with a limit of four hours of air time per day, at or below 8,000 feet and with an additional airman or woman in the cockpit.

The pregnant pilots will have to be examined by a physician before each flight and have their eyesight checked once every month.

Dr. Ehrlich, the commander of the IAF’s flight medical unit, told the IAF quarterly that, “today, it has been proven yet again, that if women want it, they can do it.”

WWII Female Air Force Pilots Still Flying High

This is from NPR's All Things Considered.

You can listen to it at this link: http://wamc.org/post/wwii-female-air-force-pilots-still-flying-high

Transcript

ARUN RATH, HOST:
It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR West. I'm Arun Rath.
During World War II, a group of women took a bold step in aviation. While male pilots were sent overseas, the Women Air Force Service Pilots took up the war effort on the home front. From 1943 to 1944, they logged over 60 million miles across the U.S., flying 77 types of military aircraft to haul supplies and conduct training exercises.
This week, the women pilots were honored at the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. NPR's Daniel Hajek caught up with some veteran members before the parade.
DANIEL HAJEK, BYLINE: Van Nuys Airport, an hour north of L.A., a group of 10 elderly women dressed in blue uniforms walk onto an airstrip where they're greeted by a small crowd and four World War II-era AT-6 Texans, two-seater propeller planes that bring back some memories.
FLORA BELLE REECE: Pratt & Whitney engine, 650 horsepower and is a beautiful airplane. It will just do whatever you ask it to when you use the controls correctly.
HAJEK: That's 89-year-old Flora Belle Reece from Lancaster, California. She flew these planes 70 years ago when she volunteered for the Women Air Force Service Pilots or WASP. She was inspired to fly as a kid in Oklahoma watching the birds as she helped her dad farm.
REECE: In my life, my priorities are God first, family second, and then flying.
HAJEK: And her priorities were straight when she became one of 1,100 women who earned silver wings in the WASP originally stationed in Sweetwater, Texas. The women pilots transported soldiers, test-flew planes and conducted training exercises as seen in this WASP training film courtesy of Texas Women's University.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAINING FILM)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Nobody should ever tell a WASP that flying's not a woman's job. They wouldn't believe it any more than if it were said a girl can't be a good flier and a woman.
HAJEK: One of their most dangerous missions, towing targets for anti-aircraft training, where guys on the ground would shoot live ammunition. Ask 94-year-old Elizabeth Strohfus if she was ever scared.
ELIZABETH STROHFUS: Oh, no. Not a bit. I loved every minute of it.
HAJEK: Today, these women get to play co-pilots as members of the Condor Squadron at Van Nuys, take four of them up in these old planes they've restored. On the ground, a line of active duty female pilots salute as the planes pass in formation.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLANE ENGINES)
HAJEK: Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Weeks says the WASP inspired her to become a pilot. She flies F-15 and F-16 fighter jets in the United States Air Force.
LT. COL. SAMANTHA WEEKS: To have the opportunity to be around them and sit with them and listen to their stories and hear how they paved the road that allows me to walk the walk that I do in the Air Force today is just amazing.
HAJEK: Yet even today, the aviation culture is largely male dominated. The FAA estimates that women make up just 7 percent of certified pilots in the U.S. These women are trailblazers.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLANE ENGINES)
HAJEK: The AT-6s land and sputter back to the hanger. Elizabeth Strohfus carefully climbs out of the cockpit. She's all smiles.
STROHFUS: Good memories. It was a beautiful flight. I used to do a lot of formation flying. Course, they always said I flew too close. I said, I thought that's what you're supposed to do.
(LAUGHTER)
HAJEK: Like the other WASPs, flying is in her blood. When Strohfus was 72, she hitched a ride in an F-16 fighter jet. Midway through her flight, she says the pilot gave her the controls. So you took control.
STROHFUS: Sure.
HAJEK: And what did you do?
STROHFUS: Well, I didn't mean to make too steep a turn, but I got a 6G turn.
HAJEK: 6Gs.
WEEKS: 6G turn.
STROHFUS: 6Gs, yeah. And he said: Hey, take it easy. I don't have the (unintelligible). I said: Honey, you can have mine because I don't need it.
HAJEK: They've come a long way since the WASP was disbanded in 1944. These women were finally recognized as veterans in 1977, and they received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010. Earlier this week, their own float at the Rose Parade. Members of the Women Air Force Service Pilots are like celebrities in the aviation world. They live for the thrill of flying. Daniel Hajek, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR,