Alison Eke
Alison Eke meant to become a surgeon but fell in love with flying. She joined the army, specialised in aviation medicine and became the first female military pilot in the British forces. Today, she is senior medical officer at an Apache helicopter station.
When I entered preclinical study at Kings College London in 1979, I had every intention of becoming a surgeon, after school holidays spent watching surgeons at Addenbrookes. Then I took up gliding and found flying to be far more of an inspiration than anatomy.
I enquired about joining the RAF but a stroke of luck saw me placed with an army anaesthetist in my fourth year, who pointed out that although RAF doctors weren’t allowed to fly, Army aviation medicine specialists were required to be military pilots. I transferred my allegiance and obtained an Army cadetship, which also helped to fund an elective period in Australia with (you’ve guessed it) The Royal Flying Doctor Service.
At army careers interviews I was told repeatedly I could not do aviation medicine because, “We do not have female pilots in the military”. I quietly ignored this and, after three applications, the Army Air Corps let me go through the selection process. By this time I was an army gliding instructor and competition pilot, so I managed to pass all the tests and slipped through into Army Pilots’ Course 323.
I qualified in May 1990 as the first serving female military pilot in the British Forces and completed an exciting flying tour in Belize, navigating my Gazelle helicopter over unmapped jungles and mountains, the Caribbean and coral islands.
There was also the not-so-small matter of my postgraduate medical training in aviation medicine, both civilian and military, and general occupational medicine. I often felt that I spent my entire life studying, doing tests and exams.
After my flying tour, I became senior specialist in aviation medicine, with responsibility for all army aviation personnel in Germany and Canada. I continued to fly regularly as a Gazelle Aircraft commander and felt I had the best job in the world! Next were jobs in research, at the Centre for Human Sciences in Farnborough and at HQ Land Forces, by now as a consultant, before four children arrived and my army career was no longer practicable.
Luck was again on my side, as there was a Territorial Army post in aviation medicine, which I was able to fill for ten years, keeping up my skills as a pilot and as an army doctor while working full time in civilian occupational medicine. My TA unit was disbanded in 2009 and I faced finally leaving the career I had loved for so long. Then came the final piece of luck – there was a regular army aviation medicine post, which was going to be left unfilled for a prolonged period.
I jumped at the opportunity, left my civilian medical job and in 2010 year was joyfully reinstated in the army as the senior medical officer for an Apache helicopter station, looking after the medical needs of the helicopter pilots and engineers.
'I was told, “We do not have female pilots in the military.” I qualified as the first serving female military pilot in the British Forces'