Plane spotting

Thanks Viking, understand how the confusion arose

A quick google found that BA's first female pilot was Lynn Barton in 1987, who started her training in 1979.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1582865/BAs-first-female-pilot-to-land-T5s-maiden-flight.html

So BA was accepting women as trainee pilots in the 1970s. But that doesn't say anything about the identity of the person mentioned in the OP, and it would be wrong to assume that just because women could train as pilots in the 70s, therefore anyone who now claims to be a woman who did that is actually a woman.

If the opening post had actually named the pilot, then obviously peole wouid not have posted about women BA pilots and how their employment dates fitted what was actually in the post if training time included.

It was an attempt to be helpful ffs

It struck me as a (near successful) attempt to shut down discussion without being aware of what was actually being discussed.

"Unless there was an actual female pilot featured in the programme as well (I didn't watch the whole programme)."

I watched the programme and there was supposedly a female BA pilot, who stood out from all the others on the programme. There was only one pilot who had over 40 years experience.
The pilot in question was Catherine Burton who is a transgender woman.
British Airways has more female pilots than any other airline in the UK, with around 200 female pilots out of the 3,500 total pilots.
Would it really have been so difficult to have a female pilot on the show?

It was another long-serving BA ilot, a woman whose flying career could be described as starting in the 1970s, and that struck me as an obvious way to make sense of the dates.

Because I hadn't watched the programme, and a specific pilot had not been named on thread at the time. There are at least 3 pilots who fit my description of time lines, one of whom I know in RL which is why my solution to the (unnamed) pilot mystery as written in the opening post, sprang to mind.

I had also assumed that other posts, where posters refer knowing pilots and their families in RL, are about one or more of those three

It is a bit weird, OldCrone.

Or what OldCrone said!

Weird posts Viking

Your first post seems to be talking specifically about someone but you don’t say who? Was it another named pilot in the programme?

Thanks for clearing that up, VikingVolva. But it's a bit odd to say, 'yes, she's a woman' if you didn't know which pilot was being discussed. Unless there was an actual female pilot featured in the programme as well (I didn't watch the whole programme).

The early posts, when the person in the programme had not been named, referred to other pilots.

Or at least mine did.

Because at that stage whuch pilot was in the show had not been specified. And women had entered the BA pilot training pathway by the 1970s, so that seemed a logical way to settle the apparent anomaly.

If it had been clear in the opening post which pilot, then responses might have been different.

Ah I see. Deceptive.

It's Catherine Burton in the programme. I think the earlier posters saying she's a woman think TWAW.

Okay I'm confused. A couple of people upthread saying 'she is a woman, I’ve flown with her' and 'yes, she is a woman'. But then people are saying it was the transwoman Catherine Burton, who flew for decades as a man before transitioning. So... which is it?

i2-prod.walesonline.co.uk/incoming/article11210604.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/womenspire-02.jpg

As someone who was told at the age of 15 (many years ago) that I couldn’t be a pilot because I’m female, this type of story really boils my piss. It’s not like I could identify out of that discrimination. And don’t those programme makers ever ask themselves how it was that Cat was able to train as a pilot in the first place. It’s all bollocks. Literally.

This is so fucking depressing.

Oh FFS! Can they never find an actual natal woman who's first in her field. Or sky, in this instance. Does it always have to be a man who identifies as a woman?

I'm well pissed off.

Fire and fury

I'm on fire Rufus

wrath

No penny dropping for you

She was working as backroom staff for many years then decided she could be a pilot.

Not.

Had Catherine Burton transitioned prior to becoming a pilot, then they may have a point - but even that would be questionable.

But flying for 40yrs as a man, then transitioning ?? And talking about it "as a woman" - winning women's awards?? - there aren't enough WTFs in the world for that

Be trans if you want but don't claim the top spot just because you find it easy.

Because it isn't an achievement.

Name changed and scarpered, cos I went right off strawberries.

So, back to female pilots.
I really can't abide transwomen winning some kind of breakthrough medal as a woman.

It is cheating and its the same as what's happening in sports.

It denies a real woman of recognition that
she has earned.

It was one of the worst programmes I've ever seen on the BBC, and that's saying something. We had it on because my husband thought it might be good. I clocked Captain Burton early on. I do think it's unfortunate that the BBC couldn't find a female captain who slogged all the way up the ranks as a female, but at least they showed a female air traffic controller at work.