Woman of the Day company secretary and WW2 Air Transport Auxiliary pilot First Officer Gabrielle Patterson, born OTD 1905 in London, the first woman in the UK to hold a flying instructorās certificate. If there was an aircraft type she couldnāt fly, the RAF didnāt have one.
GabrielleĀ gained her aviatorās āAā certificate in 1931 and qualified as a flying instructor in 1933. By the late 1930s, she was leader of, and flying instructor for, the 125-strong National Women's Air Reserve at Maylands Aerodrome, Romford. As the daughter of a wealthy family, it worried her that other women would be put off from qualifying as flying instructors as āWomen Pilots hitherto have consisted only of those with large enough Bank Balancesā.
Gabrielle had strong opinions on equality for women. In 1938, writing about āwomen flying instructors in the event of warā, she said, "The instructor always starts with the advantage of his pupil's spontaneous respect for a (relative) master of his subject, coupled with a very natural wish to shine. The woman instructor has the added advantage that this respect is enhanced by her supposed greater difficulties in acquiring that (relative) mastery and with the instinctive desire of the male to impress the female. By tactfully and subtly indicating the conduct in the air and on the ground which does win her confidence and does impress her, she can obtain it in nine cases out of ten, and in the face of such a proportion she could certainly count on disciplinary measures for the tenth."
In other words, a woman need not be put off by the male trait of wanting to show off to women. Nine times out of ten, she can set the boundaries for a professional working relationship with a male pupil, but if he crosses the line, nick him. A woman after my own heart.
When WW2 broke out, Gabrielle was 34, living in Bristol, and had clocked up 1,530 flying hours. She applied to the Air Transport Auxiliary as soon as it opened its doors to women in 1940. She had already mastered nearly twenty types of aircraft, had owned "a Miles Whitney Straight, a Puss Moth, two Gypsy Moths, and two Swallows (only one any good)", and had flown in Germany, Belgium, Holland and France as well as the UK.
Gabrielle was one of the First Eight, the highly experienced women pilots who joined the ATA on 1 January 1940 after being recruited by Pauline Gower. They knew each other. Theyād competed in the Ladies Flying Event at Reading in May 1931 alongside Amy Johnson, another ATA pilot.
Initially, they were restricted to flying non-operational types of plane such as trainers or communications aircraft and paid 20% less than the men but Pauline Gower secured equal flying opportunities for women in 1941, and in 1943, only after a long battle, equal pay. It was the ever equal pay settlement in the UK.
Retaliation was subtle ā call it an invisible tariff that only applies to women who dare to work in a male-dominated field. First Officer Lettice Curtis, for example, was required to make ten perfect landings in a Halifax bomber before she was cleared to fly them, not the seven required of her male colleagues.
Gabrielle graduated to flying Hurricanes, Spitfires, Hudsons, Wellingtons, Lysander and Mosquitoes among others, adding another 29 types of aircraft to her record. She was regarded as "a polished pilot whose capabilities are limited by her physique.ā She was quite small.
After WW2, Gabrielle served as Commandant of the Womenās Junior Air Corps for four years, writing the syllabus, and was the first woman appointed to the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigatorsā Panel of Examiners. Later, she taught foreign pilots how to communicate clearly in English over the radio.
Gabrielle died in 1968, aged 63. Her ashes were scattered from the air over White Waltham Airfield, home of the No.1 Ferry Pool and also then the home of the ATA Museum.
