Getting the new year off to a flying start (pun fully intended) with the RAF’s 2nd ever female fast jet pilot, Mandy Hickson. Think Top Gun with British accents and you’re right on the money!
Mandy’s book, “An Officer, Not a Gentleman”, is a cracking read, charting her flying career from Air Training Corps as a teenager, via the years of intense training to 3 tours in Iraq and the latter years “flying a desk”.
In this highly entertaining chat, we cover much of that plus men’s mental health, crying as a healthy outlet for the “stress bucket” (or just at a weepy movie!), being shot at by a surface to air missile while flying in Iraq, how she built a career post-RAF teaching people about human factors - communications, decision-making, risk and threat analysis, leadership, team work – and how when it comes right down to it, having friends who know and love you make for the best times and the best memories.
Mandy was so easy to talk to - we found some shared life experiences - and I’m pretty sure two tall, blonde, gobby women could quite happily have put the world to rights over a glass of wine or six, but we had to make do with a very enjoyable hour-long internet chat.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
You can follow Mandy on Instagram @mandyhicksonspeaker and get hold of her, and her brilliantly titled book, through www.hicksonltd.com