An interview with the founder of Project Wingman

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ben Hall (00:06):
Hello, and welcome to the pilot based podcast. I'm Ben
and I've been a pilot for over adecade.

Dave Rogers (00:11):
And I'm Dave categorically not a pilot.

Ben Hall (00:14):
Every Monday we'll be chatting to both pilots and non
pilots with amazing aviationstories from all around the
world. You can find all episodesof the pilot based podcast for
free wherever you get yourpodcasts. If you like what
you're hearing, subscribe to ourchannel and leave us a review.

In this episode, we meet Emma Henderson, MBE, pilot,
Captain, TV star, wife, mother,farmer, triathlete, founder of
project wingman recognised bythe queen and honoured for her
services to charity. She's comea long way since joining that
university Air Squadron in heryouth. We cover a lot of ground

(00:51):
in this podcast and thoseheadlines and just the start.
It's a great chat with a greathuman being to sit back and
enjoy. Captain Anna HendersonMBA Welcome to pilot base now
you both captain and MBA, orjust supersede the other.

Emma Henderson (01:10):
No, I can be both of those. So because
obviously Captain relates to myqualification in my career, and
the MB is an honour awarded tome by Her Majesty the Queen,
which is a huge honour, and I'mvery excited about it, as you
can imagine. I certainly

can, although what was the the presentation of it
like not the traditional onethat we've become accustomed to
over there via second class

Ben Hall (01:37):
post?

Well, and I mean, the the notification of it
was something that happened byemail, whereas normally that
would be a letter and the actualpresentation and collection of
it. Well, it remains to be seenbecause they still haven't
presented last year's New Year'sHonours yet. And then there's
the Queen's Birthday ones aswell. So in terms of that, I The

(02:03):
idea is that you go toBuckingham Palace or Hollywood
to collect it, but actually,that may not happen at all. So
or and if it does, it won't befor at least a year.

Amazing. That's just another thing to look
forward to, though, isn't it,we're always looking for reasons
to be cheerful and things in thefuture that we can get excited
about. Why

want to be honest with you, even if I don't
end up going. So the otheroption if they decide to just
clear the backlog by not doingpalace presentations for this
tranche of honours, then thatwould most likely be awarded to
me by the Lord left tenant ofMarie, which is the county I
live in, who I also sit on atrust with her coincidentally.

(02:48):
And so actually, even if it waspresented to me by him, he's
still the Queen's representativein Murray, and it would still be
you know, we'd make it a lovelyoccasion and it would still be
really nice. So even if I didn'tget that trip to the palace,
which I obviously hope I do,because it will mean a new dress
and something to put on my head.
Then Then, you know, it willstill be a lovely occasion. And
it's still Yeah, it's somethingamazing to look forward to. So

Ben Hall (03:12):
yeah, so the actual honour is is official now is
there as of the first ofJanuary?

Yes, as of the first of January, I found out on
the third of December and you'resworn to secrecy. Can't tell
anyone apart from if you workfor a company or charity, you
can tell your press people. So Ihave a press person. So I told
her and and so but other thanthat you can't tell anyone. So I
had this massive secret to keepfrom my children, my parents and

(03:40):
my, the rest of my family and

Ben Hall (03:42):
even close family. You can't You can't even tell them.

No, it's supposed to be kept a complete
secret until the embargo islifted, which this year was at
1030 on the 30th in the evening,and I was actually on FaceTime
to my son around 10 o'clock inthe evening, because he lives in
London. And my brother in lawphoned me at like 1030 and 30
seconds and said, Where are yougoing to tell us? And I said,

(04:06):
Paul? Yes, I was. I didn'trealise it was gonna actually
hit the news at 1030. You know,I thought they might have waited
till the morning or something.
So, yeah, it was that secret?

See, it would have been a great way to sneak it in
when you were doing yourChristmas card. So Best wishes.
Good luck in the new year. EmmaHenderson MBA?

Yeah, well, you'd know who'd read them then
wouldn't be

amazing. So how soon so your family found out on
the news before you'd run them?

Yes, quite a lot of them did. So I was able to
tell you know, the children andmy parents and my husband's
parents. We did tell themearlier in the evening. Because
we didn't want them to find outon the news. But other than
that, it was a complete secretfrom everyone. So the hilarious
thing actually was on themorning of New Year's Eve when I
woke up and switched my phoneon. There were so many mess I

(04:58):
had 400 messages in it. If Ididn't know which noise to make
first, whether it should be anemail or a text or a message or
whatever, so it made this kindof cacophony of different
noises, which is quite cool,actually.

Yeah, I can I can imagine, although quite scary
for a bit, it must have feltlike a bug all over again.

Well, part of it, I was just thinking, you
ever gonna stop? You know, justhow am I going to reply to all
these messages and eat andsleep? So um, yeah, it was
amazing, absolutely fantasticthing to have. And like you say,
a fantastic thing to lookforward to. But it's also
something that's a collectiveeffort. You know, I haven't been

(05:36):
given an MBA for being Mr.
Henderson, I've been given anMBA for being a medicine CEO,
project wing man, and all thatgoes into that. So that's all
the back office staff and allthe hours they've put into it.
And, crucially, all thevolunteers and all the time they
spent going into hospitals andactually do it making it a
reality, you know. So that'sthe, that's the real sort of
accolade for them as well, Ithink,

well, if you are able to go and collect your
Gong, as it were, it means thatwe've evolved in terms of being
able to have mass gatherings. Sothat sounds like a project wing
man, celebration party to me.

Absolutely. And I've already, I mean, even the
back in the middle of last year,I was talking to people about,
you know, when we can all movearound, again, I think we should
have a big, you know, wing manball or something like that,
that that needs to includepartners as well. Because you
know, when you give a lot tosomething like this, whether you
are doing my role, or whetheryou're volunteering in the

(06:33):
hospital, or whether you'redoing some of the Back Office
Admin stuff, and your partnerinevitably is not going to see
you for quite large periods oftime. And, and so I think, you
know, I've always found itstrange when the airline I
worked for had a sort ofRecognition Award ceremony, and
partners weren't invited tothat. And I kind of got it

(06:54):
because it was a big partyanyway. But I always sort of
think that your success is basedon the people that are around
you, as well. Because if you'renot supported by them, then it's
harder for you to go out and dothings. Well, isn't it? So?

Absolutely. Now, we've got ahead of ourselves
here, and it's been such ajovial start, but we must scold
you to begin with that becauseyou were late, why were you
late?

I was late. And that will come as no surprise to
some of my friends who walktheir dogs with me regularly.
And they actually now say to me,we'll meet half an hour earlier
knowing that. But so I do tendto have, I don't wear a watch
for a start. And, and but I wason I was on the phone to. I was

(07:41):
talking to somebody from thetelegraph. So. So you know,
which is a lovely, actually,it's a really lovely thing to
have been doing. So there's alady who writes something called
You are not alone, which is aweekly newsletter that the
telegraph puts out. And I'vespoken to her before. And it is
an update really about where wemanaged and what we've been

(08:04):
doing. And the things that havechanged since I spoke to her
last summer. So it was justfantastic to be able to do that
and just get a little bit moreawareness, wider awareness of
what we are and who we do withwho we are and what we're doing.
And so not the other way around.
And yeah, that was really nice.

(08:24):
But inevitably, when you sort ofback these things up together,
you say, Yes, I can meet you at10 o'clock, and I can meet you
at half past 10 I can meet. Italways runs over. So I do
apologise I take the scolding.
And I promise the better nexttime

Ben Hall (08:38):
just to confirm that lateness was 90 seconds. So it's

unacceptable.
Unacceptable behaviour.

You don't wear a watch is that the reason that
none of my flights ever take offon time?

day? Yeah.
My flights always left on time.
I always wore a watch at work.
But no, since I always had thisthing that when I wasn't at
work, I don't want to be sort ofbeholden to the time of day. And
I've got a clock in thedownstairs dining room and you

(09:11):
know, I've got my phone I cancheck the time if I really need
to. And if it's something veryimportant I really mustn't miss
and I can always set an alarm onmy phone but I never do and I
just don't like wearing a watch.
So and so I'm at work it to meit's sort of signifies being at
work so and I'm not at workanymore.

So fair enough.
Just looking at some of thethings you've done publicity
wise, BBC Radio for theTelegraph, channel five so much
regional news mentions at theChelsea Flower Show your
parliamentary MP and now the bigone of course the pilot based
podcast as well. I mean, escapethe area actually is the scoop
of 2021 get that get that on thetestimonials ban that's Yeah,

Ben Hall (09:59):
well, dude. First

thing I've done this year.

Fantastic stuff.
But I'd like to talk about youbeing a pilot first. This is a
pilot base versus a pilotspodcast. First and foremost. Are
you from an aviation family?
What was your journey into thecockpit?

No, I'm not from an aviation family at all. I
grew up in a fairly small townin Essex. My dad has
businessmen. He's still aLloyd's broker. So the only
aviation link, I suppose, isthat his his business was
centred on aviation and marine.
And my mum was a teacher wholeft teaching to go and work for
my dad's business. So we grewup. Very, I would say, I would

(10:44):
say very ordinarily, but I knowit wasn't ordinary. I know we
had a very blessed upbringing.
You know, I sailed boats, I hada horse. And I thought I'd that
would be the sort of thing Iwould do in the future would be
those sorts of long those sortsof lines. And I did always have

(11:06):
a fascination with flying. Andso I've still got, because I'm a
hoarder, I've still got in mylife school projects I did when
I was eight about flight. And soI did have this massive
fascination. And I'd love theScience Museum because it had
sort of models of montgolfierballoons, and, you know, early
aircraft and things and I usedto read Biggles books, because I

(11:28):
loved them. And I just sort ofstay exciting. So I must, I did
have this fascination, but I wasnever that child that said, When
I grow up, I'm going to be apilot. And when I was again,
about eight, and the split, thefirst space shuttle Enterprise
went around the world on theback of a 747. And it came in to

(11:49):
Stansted and which was not farfrom where we lived. And I
begged my mum and dad to take usto see it, which they did. And
I've got a photo of me standingin front of this 747 with a
space shuttle on the back of it,which is amazing. And the only
other thing I've seen sincesince then that's more that's
equally as amazing withaircraft, is when an Antonov,

(12:12):
which is the largest aircraft inthe world came into RFK loss,
which is where I live and took aNimrod away. It had its wings
taken off, and it took thefuselage of a Nimrod away to be
re sprayed. And, and turned intoa new aircraft. And this
fuselage was inside this Antonovand seeing that take off, you

(12:32):
know, every inch of runway toactually get airborne. So that
was really amazing. But thefirst thing I'd seen was this
massive aircraft with a spaceshuttle on the back of it, which
is incredible. And so Iobviously after that decided I
was going to be an astronaut, asyou would, and I had this
enormous poster of the spaceshuttle taking off on my bedroom

(12:52):
wall till I was about 18, whichis probably why I couldn't keep
a boyfriend. And and but then,you know, when I went to
university, my plan was to I dida history degree. And I my plan
was to go and convert that intoa law degree and become a
hotshot lawyer in the city. Thatwas where my thoughts lay at the

(13:16):
time. And I even had a placementlined up with a firm in London
to do in my summer holidays andthings like that. But I spent my
first year sailing racing boatsfor the university. And in my
second year, I walked intofreshers fair and saw this big
sign saying learn to fly forfree. And I'd had a fly and less

(13:36):
of my 18th birthday, which I'dloved. But even back then it was
quite expensive to have flyinglessons. And I didn't have the
means to pay for it quicklyenough to do it. So I saw this
sign saying learn to fly forfree. And I thought brilliant.
How do you do that? And it wasthe university Air Squadron. So
I went and chatted to them andsigned up on the spot and said,

(13:58):
Yes, I'd like to do that. Thankyou very much. And then got home
and thought what on earth am Idoing? I don't want to be told
what to do by other people. So Iam actually retracted my
application. And they camearound the next day and said
please don't do that. Pleasekeep the application and so I
did. And I went down for thisinterview or what was then Aria
fittingly, which is nowDoncaster Robin Hood airport,

(14:20):
and got got a place on theYorkshire University Air
Squadron and spent two yearsthere flying Bulldogs. That was
the air air force train plane atthe time. So that's where I
learned to fly. And the firstweekend you go down the weekend
and you have a lecture on aFriday night, or that's how it

(14:40):
was then, and then you flewSaturday and Sunday. And the
first weekend that I was down atfeelingly, I walked into the bar
and met some people I've met atparties before in Leeds where I
was at university and one ofthese guys introduced me to his
group of friends and one ofthose guys that he introduced me
She was the only one that didn'thave a name like you smash TAF

(15:04):
Mountie Magoo. He is the onlyone with no more name. And that
was Jim. And actually, he's nowbeen my husband for 25 years.
So I met him a wife last weekendthere. And largely because of
that we were we got engagedafter six months of marriage a

(15:25):
year later. And yeah, and, andmostly because of that, and the
fact he was sent up to Kinloss,I put my papers into Cranwell,
and did aptitude tests. And theysaid, margin offer pilot and
exceptional for navigator and athought, that really want to be
a navigator, I'll just marry oneinstead. So that's what I did.
And that was it for when Ididn't fly again. And I sort of

(15:48):
walked away from it, and movedup to an employment black spot
with an English surname in anAirforce address, so I couldn't
get a job. And I did get jobs Idid work I am, I worked in a
call centre, selling dubiousvideos to people in GPS
magazines. And then working onthem. parking tickets, was one

(16:11):
of the things I worked on inthat call centre, or worked for
a farmer as the Secretary whereI am sometimes, I'd always take
my wireless because you neverknow if you'd be writing letters
or herding cows, which is reallygood fun. And eventually became
an office manager for leisurecompany. And that was my life.

(16:32):
And I just didn't really thinkI'd fly again. And I had turned
down an offer from BritishAirways to go to the they had a
cadet Training Centre inPrestwick, but I got a place on
that and then turned it downbecause it was, you know, down
the road in Glasgow, which nowwouldn't seem anything. But back
in the mid 90s, when phones werestuck to walls, and the only

(16:53):
mail you received was in thepost. You know, it seemed like a
long way away, and we just gotmarried. So that was the right
thing to do to not do that. And,and then, you know, in 2003, we
had just built our house, we'vebeen living in it for a year and
loved it. And somebody somewheredecided it would be a good idea

(17:15):
for us and our little family, wehave three children by then, us
and our little family to move12,000 miles around the other
side of the world to NewZealand, which was the beginning
of the whole adventure, really,it was the beginning of a whole
new life. And that's reallywhere the the flying story
started again.

So let's let's fast forward to that, then you put it
to the back of your mind, it wassomething that was was great
memories, and it essentially ledto you having a brilliant life
with their husbands and kids andopportunities and fun jobs by
the sounds of things. If notYeah, they wanted to

make fun. Of

course, especially the farming, I mean, goodness
mates. Brilliant. Yeah. And soyou've got to New Zealand, what
happened then?

Well, my brother had moved out there in 95, when
he got married, and he's stillthere. So it was a fantastic
gift for us to be moving near toHim. And there's just the two of
us. And although obviously verydifficult for my parents now
have both their children so faraway. But we moved out there
and, you know, just settled intothis amazing life as experts. It

(18:24):
was just it was really good. AndI had just turned 30 just before
we we went and I'd spent my 20shaving kids when all my mates
were in London, having careersand life. And it was fantastic
place to be because I think youknow, I had got married and
essentially turned into my momwho's a lovely lady, but she's

(18:45):
like 25 years older than me. So,you know, turning 30 and moving
to New Zealand, loads ofdifferent things happen to help
me to understand who I actuallywas. Rather than being you know,
the daughter of a relatively bigfish in a small pond in Essex,
or the wife of an Air Forceofficer or the mother of three

(19:06):
children. Suddenly, I was ableto start finding out who Mr.
Henderson was and lots ofdifferent things happened. I was
basically a heavy in both sensesof the word heavy smoker, fat,
didn't run or exercise. hadn'tlost my baby, we ate lots of
chocolate and very quiteunhealthy person who had a

(19:29):
really big pawn shop for wine.
And, you know, it's a veryhealthy lifestyle out there. You
know, I met people who didthings like running and I
thought but you're not on fire.
Why would you do that? And, butI basically got to a point. We
were we've been a few monthswhere I thought, you know, I

(19:52):
really need to stop smoking andI need to sort my life out a bit
and started running and took uptriathlons. And my husband said
to me, Look, you stop smoking,the money you save in New
Zealand dollars on what youwould spend in pounds on
cigarettes will pay for you todo your private pilot's licence
if you want to do it. And I waslike, that's a great idea

how much smoking?

I was put smoking 25 times a day,
probably. And, you know, and sowas he. So, you know, we were
both smoking heavily. And agreat example to the children.
And, and so, you know, that alladds up. And of course, and so
at the time, there were threeand a half New Zealand dollars

(20:40):
to the pound as well. So he sortof think how much we were
spending and then triple it. Andthen that, you know, pretty much
I guess there's sort of a packof no 200 cigarettes and
probably pay for a flyinglesson, essentially. So he said,
if you're going to do this,you've got to stop smoking for
six weeks before you can fly,because otherwise you won't do

(21:03):
it. I thought, yeah, that's alsofair. So I stopped smoking,
which was very, very difficultbecause I had done it for a lot
of years. And I thought, I'mgoing to get even fatter, so I
need to move. So I took uptriathlons as well mini
triathlons, and really minitriathlons and had just built up
slowly with that. And after sixweeks, I went from my first

(21:24):
flight. And I remembered prettymuch everything from when I had
flown eight years before. And itwas absolutely brilliant. I
loved it. And that's really,literally as they say, the rest
is history. You know, I did myprivate pilot's licence. And so

(21:44):
we were living at this NewZealand Air Force Base called
funnel epi, it just in Auckland,just north of Auckland. And as
part of my husband's job, he wasflying the p3 Orion for their
Air Force. And he would have togo away quite a lot. So
typically, when I did my privatepilot's flight test, he was

(22:04):
actually away, and we movedhouse as well. So I ended up
with three weeks with him away,during which time we moved
house, I got my private pilot'slicence. And there was something
else that happened as well, Ican't remember why

Ben Hall (22:18):
isn't it?

Isn't it just Yeah, very hard for him being in
Malaysia while I was doing allof that. So when I did, very
benevolently tell him what ournew address was. So he knew it.
But it was tempting not to,though. Yeah. And then then it
was a case of our building. Andthat was brilliant because and

(22:41):
you can't be paid to fly whenyou've got a private licence
that you can share the cost of aflight. So people will say to
me, can you fly me and my familyaround Auckland, and we'll just
split the cost of the flightbetween us which was legal and
allowed me to build up our soyeah, bearing in mind Auckland,
I don't know if you either ifyou've ever been there, but
there's a Sky Tower there, whichis, you know, a big tower with

(23:05):
an observation deck on it. Andit's quite a low lying city.
Otherwise, there is a CBD with afew skyscrapers, but they're not
not too many of them. And youcould fly just over the top of
all of that and round. You know,we used to do orbits around the
Sky Tower, and fly out to thewest coast beaches. And you
know, just the sort of thingthat you look back and say, Wow,

(23:26):
over a city, how are we allowedto do that? You know,

Ben Hall (23:29):
yeah, I get my Flying Training in South Africa. And it
was kind of same deal there.
That airspace was so open anduncongested it's brilliant.
Johannesburg. 1000 feet.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Amazing. And
all you had to do was just ask,as long as an Auckland Airport
wasn't busy, which it neverreally was, you know, there
would be times of the day whenyou knew flights would be coming
in. But other than that, youcould just fly over the top of
Auckland Airport to go south aswell. And you didn't have to go
round it, you know, it's justcrazy. And the things we saw,

(24:00):
were amazing. And I built myhours up and I did my commercial
pilot's licence, which involvedanother eight exams, slightly
different system there thanhere. And then basically, I had
then you do a multi enginerating and an instrument rating
so you can fly without being invisual contact with the ground.
And I got all of those under mybelt and then applied to Bristol

(24:24):
groundschool for their the airtransport pilot licence exams
and they were in the foldersthen. We're still sort of
talking, you know? 2005 2000Yeah. 2005. And they came in
these massive folders, which Ihad to get from Oxford or from
Bristol to New Zealand. Andluckily, we have become good

(24:48):
friends with a lot of people outthere and there was that they
had to Boeing seven, fivesevens, the New Zealand Air
Force that they used to fly.
They use them for troopmovements basically and people
movements and they He used tobring them over to the UK for
exercises and things like that.
And they were in the UK at thetime when I needed to get my
course. So I just found out oneof the pilots and said, If I get

(25:10):
this delivered to your hotel,can you bring it back for me? He
went, Yeah, no problem. Yeah,would have been amazing,
wouldn't it except that itarrived at their hotel, they
forgot to pass it on a 757 cameback to New Zealand without my
phone. Took the can for that.
And they they sent it out to me.
So and yeah, so it all workedout in the end. But yeah, it was

(25:34):
just one of the I think it wasone of those times, that
probably was one of the firsttimes I realised that you can
just, you can just ask people todo things for you. Because the
worst thing they can say is no.
And that's really stood me ingood stead for the last year of
wing man, you know, I canimagine

Ben Hall (25:50):
amazing the power of having a good network, isn't it?

Oh, absolutely.
Yeah. I mean, I really, I reallythink the last 11 years of
flying have that they've donemany things. But one of the
things that has happened as aresult of that is this massive
network of people I've been ableto call on in a in order to put
women together in the firstplace. So yeah, it's always it's
always important to be nice topeople. But I think even more so

(26:16):
if you if you want to be able tocall in favours in the future,
you know,

so let's, let's box off this this pilot journey
before we move on to wing manand you you put all of that into
practice. And you were acommercial pilot until you
weren't a commercial pilot. Whatwas your What was your journey
out of out of being a pilot,let's just say,

Well, I worked for EasyJet for 11
years and moved around lots ofdifferent bases as part of that.
And the reason for moving aroundis because there's a family we
move because my husband's in theairforce and we were posted so I
ended up at Gatwick mainlybecause we were we had moved to

(27:01):
Lincolnshire, which is not nearanywhere in terms of any base I
could work out of. And so I wascommuting to loot and at the
time, and I said to my husbandthat you know if I'm commuting
anyway, and your job can moveCan we just go home. So we
managed to get his job postedback up to last the mouse and

(27:24):
came home to the house that webuilt and her cats and love and
and this is where we wanted ourlives to be and still want our
lives to be. So in order tosustain that I moved to Gatwick
because there's the most flightsa day between Inverness and
Gatwick in order to be able toget to work, or actually ever
that's in London, because baflew to Heathrow and we had

(27:47):
Luton and Gatwick. So I hadseven choices a day of how I
could get home or get down andI'd go down for a block and then
I'd stay down there. And in thattime, I could do Inverness,
night stops and come home. So itwas a really nice setup. But of
course, then COVID came alongand grounded aircraft. And we're
now down to three flights a weekto London from Inverness. And

(28:08):
there were a number of reasonswhy I made this decision. But
actually the biggest was reallythe fact that I could no longer
get to work. So I took thedecision to take voluntary
redundancy which was beingoffered by the company. I also
felt that it gave me back somecontrol over a life that I felt
was a bit out of control,because none of us know what's

(28:32):
happening there. Even still,obviously, my friends are still
employed. They don't know what'sgoing on all the time. And yes,
they're getting paid at the endof every month, but not I think
the pay the trade off for thatwas too great for me. And so
yeah, I spent quite a lot oftime agonising about it and
obviously talking to my husbandabout it because of the impact

(28:54):
it has on our family. But I tookthat decision to step back from
flying, and I don't know if Iwill fly again. It's quite
possible I won't, and I'm okaywith that. If that's the case,
I'd like to think that I will.
But you know, I'm, I'm 47 I'vegot eight and a half 1000 hours
behind under my belt. I've beena captain, I've, I've achieved a

(29:19):
lot of the things that you'dwant to set out to achieve at
the beginning of a flyingcareer. And, you know, maybe I'm
not meant to do that anymore.
Maybe the purpose of me doingthat was in order to be able to
do wing man and then lead on toother things from there. So I'm
very comfortable with the factthat I made that decision. And
I'm also very comfortable withthe fact that if I don't fly

(29:40):
again, I've had 11 amazing yearsworking for an airline really
amazing is I had three yearsbefore that as a flying
instructor. And then I had allthe training before that as
well. So I've really had somegreat experiences and I'm a
prolific photographer, so I'vegot some pictorial evidence of
that as well. As well as ofcourse, you know, the ITV

(30:00):
documentary inside the cockpit,which most people don't have
footage of them doing their job.
So I'm really, really lucky tobe in this position.

And how would you feel if you were never to fly
again,

Ben Hall (30:21):
I don't think I'd feel as quite so comfortable as MSA
in there. I haven't reached somemilestones which I would quite
like in my aviation career suchas captaincy because for the non
pilot listeners, aviation's bitof a weird industry. So vast
majority of airlines will workon a seniority basis. So it

(30:43):
doesn't matter if you're themost experienced pilot ever, if
you join a new airline, youstart as the absolute lowest
member of the pilot community.
And I've moved airlines twicenow. So three companies in
total. So I've had to reset mycareer a couple of times. So I'd
still like to get captaincy. Atsome point, I have not quite
given up that sort of flying,but I really enjoy all the other

(31:04):
elements that are outside offlying. But actually flying an
aircraft is a very, very funjob.

Yeah, I completely see where you're
coming from with that. And Iagree that, you know, I'm mostly
in this position, because I haveachieved the things I wanted to.
And, you know, I was in a verydifferent position six years
ago, I had a, an illness thatalmost killed me. And I was very
fortunate to have that diagnosedvery quickly treated very

(31:36):
quickly, and literally believethat my life was saved by a
doctor at Frimley Park. And so Iwas very lucky, but I had six
months where I had lost mymedical, and I wasn't a captain,
and I absolutely felt like youdo, and which was that if I
don't go back to flying, I wouldhave felt a bit robbed of all
the opportunities that I thatlay ahead of me, and that I had

(31:58):
worked so hard to achieve. So Icompletely understand how you
feel there

Ben Hall (32:02):
are a lot of people are very driven to become a
captain, as that is the numberone goal. That's not really my
goal. But it's definitely youknow, it's kind of where you
want to be in your career. Andif you don't quite get there, I
feel like well, it's wasted.
You've got to have some careerprogression,

you've got to have something to work towards.
So it's Yeah, of course, it'ssomething people want to do, and
quite rightly, should. Butyou're you're right, that it
shouldn't be more important thanthe reason you're doing it in
the first place, I suppose.

Ben Hall (32:32):
No, exactly. So Emma, how was with the EasyJet inside
the cockpit? How was that with?
With the recording? And like,did you operate in a slightly
different manner to what youwould do usually, because you
knew the cameras are alwaysrolling. Because obviously, I
don't mean to incriminate youhere, but pilots are very, very
professional. But there is alittle bit of informal pneus at

(32:56):
appropriate times in the cockpitwhen you've got it downtime and
stuff. And I don't know howcomfortable I feel with constant
recording of, you know, the myworkplace.

Well, my camera crew were very good. And I got
on very well, you know, I had,for about three months, I had a
dedicated film crew pretty muchfollowing me around, not on
every flight, but on a lot offlights. And they came to my
house up here as well. And so Ibuilt quite a good relationship
with them. And there was alwayssomebody from the airline with
me as well. And to just managethings, if there was a situation

(33:33):
where we perhaps wouldn't wantfilming to happen, which did
happen once with the passengerthat collapsed into my arms. I
felt it wasn't right for them tokeep filming that after the
point at which she was clearlyvery ill. And I asked them to
switch the cameras off. And theydid. And I think that's the
right thing to do, because thatwas a massive intrusion of
someone's privacy. And I don'tthink it would have been right

(33:54):
to continue that. But actually,you know, the first day I flew
his cameras in the flight deck,and it was a little bit kind of
surreal, because you're not usedto it. But then at the same
time, anybody who's known mesince I've been young will
probably say I'm a big show off.
So actually, I kind of got usedto it very quickly. And I was

(34:15):
really okay with it. I feel verycomfortable. On camera, and I
feel very, I felt very bold andvery comfortable. And at the end
of the day, I thought you know,this is my aircraft. I'm the
captain. The day goes, how I sayit's going to go with my team,
obviously, as well. I'm not thatsort of Captain that's like you
must do this. But, you know, atthe end of the day, they were

(34:37):
guests on my aircraft, and theywere there because I was
allowing it. So I kind ofthought, Well, I'm just going to
get on with my job. Because whatI really wanted to do was show
people what we do at work andwhat work is like for us and we
were I was able to do thatevent. Yes, there were the funny

(34:59):
moments like Amsterdam. And, youknow, there's a moment where I
couldn't get my torch to work.
And people commented about howmy hair wasn't brushed, and I
didn't wear makeup and stuff.
And I thought I'll give over.
Really, that's the importantthing. And, but you know, there
was also a huge pride in beingable to sort of show my family

(35:20):
even, this is what happens whenwe shut the door. And we're the
ones that are taking theresponsibility for the 180
people that sitting behind usgetting into the air and down
again safely. And so it wasgreat. And you know, with so
the, the cameras in the flightdeck was fixed. And

Ben Hall (35:38):
they sort of GoPros like

a GoPro behind us that was, is bolted to the
jump seat, basically. So in aflight deck, for those of you
who aren't aviation people, andin the flight deck, you'll have
certainly that the a 320 that Ifly has a jump seat, which is a
smaller seat than the pilotseats, that is behind the pilot

(36:05):
seats in the middle. So it'ssort of has a fold down seat and
a fold up headrest. And it'swhere a trainer would sit if
they were doing a line check onyou. Or it's where sometimes you
have maybe cabin crew who is ontheir first day, and they get to
come and sit in the in theflight deck to experience what
it's like on a takeoff orlanding or whatever. So there's
space for someone else to sitand the camera was bolted to

(36:27):
that. And of course, this allhad to be approved by all the
tech people in the airline aswell. But they had done it once
before. So they knew the format.
And then there was a FisheyeCamera, and two face cameras
that were on the combing at thefront. And that one face camera
for each of us. And then thefisheye for the whole flight

(36:47):
deck so and then we hadmicrophones as well, that were
just strapped to our seatbelts.
And they were on all the time.
Just recording everything. Andso, you know, obviously a lot of
the footage was really boring,because it was just us sitting
in the cruise or whatever. Butyou know, after a while the
cameras are there. And you justthink I can't do anything other

(37:09):
than my job. And there's nopoint trying to make things
happen. Why would you do that mymy aim there was to show the
professional side of our job.
And I had said to them, Youknow, I don't want anything to
appear that would embarrass me,my family, the airforce, the
airline, anything like that. Andit was just literally a case of

(37:31):
rolling with the punches and seewhat happened his day. So it
just became I just ignored themafter a while.

Ben Hall (37:37):
But did it didn't change the dynamic in the flight
deck at all. Because I'm justthinking right when you're in
the simulator, or when you're online check or you've got an
instructor or something. You doyour job. But there's a way you
act slightly differently, right,you're a little bit more tense
and you don't want to make amistake, and you want to make
sure everything's perfect. And Iguess when you're being recorded

(37:58):
to something that's goingnationwide.

At absolutely, you don't want that.

Ben Hall (38:03):
Exactly. You don't want the public knowing that you
make a mistake, let alone aninstructor.

Yeah, well, I mean, it did happen, didn't it
on camera. So you know, withAmsterdam, we were given an
instruction to take a certaintaxi right now amps to dam is an
enormous airport with multipletaxiways. And what actually
happened there was that we wenta different way round around
about than the guy in the towerwanted us to go, but we still

(38:28):
ended up in the right place. Andwe still ended up pointing in
the right direction, unlike thehow they made out, you know, in
the documentary, and I just saw,it's happened, we've made a
mistake. It was my mistake, morethan anything, the first officer
was all over it as usual. And itwas my mistake, can I just
accepted it. And I thought youknow what, the passengers know

(38:51):
that something's happening. So Ijust said over the PA, ladies
and gentlemen, you will noticethat we've we appear to be going
around in circles. And I canconfirm that we are and that
actually this is at the requestof air traffic control. Cause
we're waiting waiting for ourparking stand to become
available. And I can assure you,it's nothing to do with the fact

(39:11):
that the two female drivers uphere and of course, that sort of
lighting in the cabin, and wewaited for our stand to become
free and it became free and wetax it onto stand and everyone
got off and it was all amusing.
And it was just a piece thatthey were able to lift out of
it. And in context, you'd lookat that and go Yeah, actually
Amsterdam is one of those placesthat anybody could be forgiven
for, you know, going roundaround about the wrong way when

(39:32):
I'm talking about around but I'mtalking literally about a patch
of grass that we went round,sort of anti clockwise instead
of clockwise. And

Ben Hall (39:41):
if I showed you the sort of layout of Schiphol
Airport, you would just be likewhat it looks like a city.

Oh, absolutely.
To give you an idea the runwayyou take off from if your
northerly runways is five milesfrom the terminal and you know
you want to fly margin, it'sactually in a different County.
So it's an enormous place. Soyou know, it did happen. And I
think the reason that I thinkthey kind of liked filming me is

(40:08):
because I didn't try and coveranything up the difference. The
only difference really, to myworking day was that I didn't
swear, I'm not going to becalled swearing. And I hold my
hand that was shouldn't but Iswear quite a lot. And, you
know, I didn't, I thought, I'mnot going to be caught swearing
on camera, because my dad wouldgo mad, he would never forgive

(40:30):
me. So he'll forgive me a lot.
But I think he would have beenreally embarrassed. And I
thought, I'm just not gonna dothat. So, yeah, but there were
when I tried to keep it asnatural as possible, because the
first officers were often a bitmore nervous about it, because I
knew I was doing it, and I'dbeen prepped for it. But the

(40:50):
first officers would find out afew days before that they were
going to be on a flight that wasgoing to be filmed. And were
they okay with that? And they'dbe like, Oh, well, you know,
what's gonna happen here? Is itall right? And I'd be like,
yeah, don't worry about it.

Ben Hall (41:02):
He's very good at employing sort of low our pilots
went then taking them throughthe training system. So I'm
assuming that a lot of thepeople you flew with were pretty
inexperienced.

Yeah. And it's always a mix at Gatwick,
probably more so than otherbases. But all absolutely
brilliant people. And in fact,one of the guys that was in the
documentary, in the firstepisode of the documentary with
me, went to BA in the end aswell. And we're still in contact
and is absolutely lovely guy.
And we just had such a laugh andsuch a good day out. And then
one of the other first officers,she was sort of being filmed for

(41:37):
the documentary as well. Soyeah, but you know, that, what
you've got to remember issomebody might have low hours,
but if they're on the line withyou, it means they've passed all
the checks and tests and thingsthat they have to pass to be
qualified to fly that aircraft.
So yeah, they haven't got theexperience that you've got. But

(41:59):
they still bring an awful lot tothe party, and they're still
completely qualified to operatethat aircraft. So

Ben Hall (42:04):
and those people tend to be the sharpest as well,
because they've

very much so they know, to date

Ben Hall (42:09):
with the books and the manuals, and

well, they've just finished their training. So
it's like when you become acaptain, you're the sharpest
you'll ever be because you'vejust gone through this very
intensive training course. Andyou try and keep your knowledge
up as much as possible. Butinevitably, you know, it gets
there's a bit more reading to bedone each year to make sure that
happens.

Do you think hours are the best metric for
measuring a pilot suitability?

No, not at all, I think that you can have, you
can have pilots who have got1000s of hours of flying, but it
doesn't necessarily make themand it doesn't necessarily make
them even suitable to be apilot, let alone a captain. And
I think there's an awful lot ofthings thrown into the mix,
which is why now when you gothrough a command process, for
example, you have a psychiatrictest before you do it. And you

(42:58):
have to have, you know, flightswith trainers and interviews
with your boss. And there's ahuge process to go through
certainly in my airline. Inorder to be able to do that, I
imagine it's very similar in baand I imagined, it's very
similar in all the otherairlines that there's there's a
it's a three year process fromstart to finish, really. So the
course itself doesn't take thatlong, but you have to have at

(43:20):
the right number of hours, andyou have to have the right you
have to do technical assessmentsand all the rest of it as well.
And you have to have simulatorchecks before you even get to
the point where you can startthe sort of command course and,
and even in terms of being afirst officer, so when you start
flying, you start sitting in theright hand seat of the aircraft.
And that's your role then is asa first officer. And you will be

(43:44):
sitting next to a captain who isin the left hand seat of the
aircraft. And they are theexperienced one who has more
time more hours and been throughmore training, you're both
equally as qualified to fly theaircraft, your licence is the
same, but there's differentexperience levels. To sit in the
right hand seat of an aircraft.
Traditionally, you always usedto go through the sort of

(44:06):
instructor multi enginetraining, small airline, bigger
line kind of route. And thenabout, I guess, 20 years ago,
that kind of all changed whenflight training companies came
along and said, Well, actually,you know, we can do this
quicker. And so you end up witha situation where you can have a
21 year old sitting in the righthand seat of a jet with a

(44:27):
captain next to them, and theyare qualified to fly it but they
don't have the life experienceperhaps it doesn't mean they're
no good. It just means they haveless light of life experience
but they might have otherskills. But actually some of the
you know, then you can fly withsomebody who's maybe had a 15
year career as a trader in thecity, who is also a low hours

(44:48):
pilot sitting in the right handseat and brings a whole
different sort of view to theflight deck and a whole
different conversation to theflight deck. a whole different
array of skills. And everybodyhas been through an interview
process and everybody's valuableeverybody. All ranges of people
are valuable. And I think that'sthe only thing that about cadet

(45:12):
pilots who are very young, Ithink that they shouldn't be an
age limit on that. But becausejust because you're in your mid
30s, like I was when I startedEasyJet,

Ben Hall (45:24):
it doesn't mean you're too old to be able to learn that
skill and learn to fly, but tooperate that aircraft. So I find
especially for long haul flying,which I've done, that extra life
experience is absolutelyinvaluable. Because the actual
flying you're doing on a 15 hourflight, you're kind of obviously
manually taking off your gaugeautopilot, you've got quite a

(45:44):
lot of work to do at thebeginning at the end. But
there's a lot of sort ofdowntime in the middle way. And
if you're sitting next tosomebody with absolutely nothing
other than aviation under theirbelt, it gets very boring very
quick, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. And even actually,
you know, although we're shorthaul, you know, six hours to Tel
Aviv from London. And that canbe a long old day with the wrong
person. But equally, you know, Iflown with people actually, as a
first officer, I flew with acaptain to television, because
we kind of thought it was goingto be the last time we get to
fly together. And we were stilltalking on the bus on the way

(46:20):
down to the car park because wehadn't finished all the things
we wanted to talk about. So andI hope he enjoyed it as well and
didn't go home with hisbleeding. Fly with Henderson
again.

I find it really interesting. You're talking
about airports from pilotsperspective and how ship was a
bit of a nightmare because froma punters perspective, ship
holds great because you don'thave to take your liquids out of
your bag, you can just stickthem straight. The other one is
I think it's really flown intothe new Istanbul airport. No, I
have. Because when we landedthere, that was one of the last

(46:58):
flights I took before everythinglocked down. It felt like we
were taxiing for about 40minutes after we've landed, it
was miles away. Absolutely.
That's the

case in quite a few airports actually. So you
get to Madrid it will be thesame. And Barcelona is the
classic Barcelona, particularlywhen you're leaving. And
particularly if you're a lowcost airline, you park so you
can cross the wrong way to go tothe so they have a landing
runway and a takeoff runway. Andyou can sometimes get permission

(47:33):
to cross the landing runway inorder to get to the takeoff
runway. But it's such a busyairport that they don't often
allow it. So you have to taxiall the way down to the end of
the runway, then across it andthen all the way back down again
and then across to go to thetakeoff runway. So you know, and
I have done flights as well, youknow, from Amsterdam, which had
been kind of 28 minute flights,but or 35 minutes lights or

(47:57):
something like that. And thenyou spend more time on the
ground taxiing to get airborne.
And then, particularly if youhave a cue to park as well, you
can. Yeah, I

Ben Hall (48:07):
think my longest taxi time ever was like one hour and
34 minutes away. Yeah, that wasin New York, I think.

Yeah.

Ben Hall (48:16):
Because in America, they've got a bit of a weird
system that the different airtraffic controllers don't speak
to each other. So in most of theworld, it's quite integrated. So
you'll speak to sort of deliveryand then you'll speak to ground
and then you'll speak to towerand then you'll speak to
departures. And they'll kind ofpass you on to each other.
Whereas in America, those peopledon't tend to speak to each

(48:39):
other.

Wow. Oh, no, no, that

Ben Hall (48:42):
Yeah, so you'll speak to ramp who control the apron
where you're parked? They'llsay, Yeah, you're clear to push
back, no problem. You've beentaxi off the ramp, and they'll
switch you to ground but theywon't tell ground that they've
released you. So you speak toground, this is completely new
information to them. Groundlike, Oh, well, we've got 40 of
you join the queue. Okay, Does

that ever work?
That's, that's, that's bizarre.

Ben Hall (49:10):
It doesn't.

It makes you realise, I think how lucky you
know, how lucky we are with airtraffic standards in Europe. And
actually, particularly in theUK, you know, you kind of the
French air traffic controllersare very good, very
professional, as are the Dutchand you know, around Europe,
there are a number of differentair traffic control units that
you think Yeah, they know whatthey're doing. I trust them. And

(49:34):
there are some that you kind ofthink I just want to check that.
And when you get back over intoUK airspace and you hear London
control, you just think I'mhome. It is a very, yeah, it's

Ben Hall (49:46):
a very sort of comforting feeling, isn't it?
That first London controller?

Yeah, very much.
So. And actually since then, inthe last sort of nine months or
so on LinkedIn, I've made aconnection with one of the
controllers at Sonic and We'vekind of chatted a bit. And it's
just brilliant to put a face toa name. Because what I find
quite frustrating is that youtalk to these people several
times a day. And you don't knowwhat any of them look like. So
I've met some of them that, youknow, days and things like that,

(50:11):
or families days and things, andthen you just think, Oh, it's
actually really great to knowwhat you look like. And they
think the same. You know,they're kind of

Ben Hall (50:21):
recognising voices, don't you? When you Oh,
absolutely. Especially likecertain weird times of the day
when it's very quiet. Yeah, forthe North Atlantic, log into
London. And you're like, Oh, Iknow you. I obviously don't know
you at all. recognise yourvoice.

Well, the other thing is, as a female pilot,
they get to know your voice. Andparticularly, I was doing the
Inverness route a lot so that Icould get home. And you know,
you get handed over to London orScottish and they, you'd always
sort of hear them almost say,Oh, hi, how are you? I knew that
it was gonna be you flying backto Inverness for the night, you
know?

Right. Let's talk about project wing man, then
because I just thought we willget to have a quick chat and
then really sort of dive in. Andwe've been on this call for
about an hour and it's been sosorry. Please don't apologise
but such a lovely chat. And wefound that so much. Right
project in mind and what whatcame first, your idea to take
redundancy or project wing man,which was what what order did

(51:23):
they come in?

So project women came first? Okay. So back in,
you know, February, March time,when there was this kind of
weird virus happening in China,and it wasn't going to affect us
was it? And suddenly, we're sortof sitting there thinking Hang
on a minute, last week, it wasall okay. And now we're looking
at sort of Armageddon. And, youknow, I very vividly remember,

(51:50):
you have moments in your flyingcareer that you're always going
to remember that your first soloand things like that, I very
vividly remember what has turnedout to be the last flight I ever
captained. Because I canremember being on board and
knowing that we were lookingtowards being grounded. And
everybody had this sense ofanticipation on board, the

(52:11):
aircraft or everyone knewsomething was about to happen,
something big was about tohappen. And, you know, we landed
at Gatwick everybody got off thefly, everybody was in tears The
passengers as well, we were allthinking what's going to happen
next. And during that flight,and probably leading up to it as
well, I had already beenthinking to myself, you know, if

(52:33):
we get grounded, there's 1000sof aircrew that are going to be
stuck at home doing nothing. Andat the same time, there's, we're
being told there's a massivepressure on the NHS. So surely
there must be a way of marryingthose two together. And I
airlines have peer supportsystems in place and I was one
of the airline peers. So I threwthat I had met a guy called

(52:57):
Professor Rob Bohr, who is he isa clinical psychologist at the
Royal Free Hospital in London,but he's also a world leading
aviation psychologist. And heand his colleagues at the Centre
for aviation psychology, theyoversee the peer support
programmes at a number ofairlines including EasyJet, ba,

(53:18):
Norwegian, and many others. So Iknew him from my peer support,
training and the programme thathe oversees. And I was chatting
to him, we were sort of throwingaround some ideas and saying
that there must be a way ofhelping. And he said, Let me put
you in touch with this guy whowas a captain at VA. And so the

(53:41):
three of us kind of chatted, andthen the from those
conversations, there came thisidea that actually we could send
our crew into hospitals tosupport NHS staff during their
working day. And it there wereso many ideas of how that could
work. And it was, you know, wecould have 24 hour cover seven

(54:05):
days a week and, you know,wherever, and it that evolved
to, well, actually, that's notreally what they need. And, and
we spoke to the hospitals andthis other colleague, had a
partner who worked for ahospital in London, the
Whittington, and they justgrabbed it with open arms and
said, Yes, we need that. So itjust grew from there. And the

(54:27):
wingman name really just camefrom and Rob and I were sort of
just messing around on a phonecall one day and we say what
could we call it, you know? AndI said, well, it's obvious,
isn't it? We call it wingmanproject wingman because it's
like we're Top Gun. And do youthink we could get away with
that? Yeah, of course we can getaway with that. You can't own an

(54:48):
idea. So he said, Well, I inthat case, I want to be I want
to be Maverick. So I said, Allright, then I'll be goose
messing around with it andhaving a bit of a laugh with it.
And it became a reality. Youknow, project ring round just
grew from this.

(55:09):
Pretty much an idea scribbleddown on a piece of paper. So,
Dave, the guy from VA said,Well, you know, I can speak to
the hospital. So I said, Okay, Ican probably get people to help.
And so, you know, I just put themessage out on internal comms at
EasyJet on workplace and on myown Facebook and social media
and said that if you're aircrewand you're grounded, and you

(55:31):
want to help us do this, pleaseemail this gmail address that we
set up. And, and you know, wethought, yeah, we'll probably,
you know, probably help him tosupport a couple of hospitals in
London, that'd be great. Youknow, then I can sit back and do
my garden or whatever. Andwithin a week, there were 700
emails. And I was thinking a bitmuch for me, I don't think I can

(55:53):
keep doing this all the COtransferring this to a database
all the time. So I asked afriend to help and she came in
to sort of take that over. Andthen I asked another friend for
help. And we just grew and grewand grew and grew. So our first
lounge opened in the end ofMarch. And within a week, we had
another five I think, in Londonand what by the time we got to

(56:14):
the summer, we had five and ahalf 1000 volunteers and we had
84 lounges across the country.
So and we're still opening letme know we opened in Belfast
just before Christmas. So yeah,a lot of clothes now, but there
are still a lot opening as well.

And who is getting in touch to volunteer? Is it
predominantly pilots and cabincrew? Or are you hearing from
other people in the industry,too.

So it's all current pilots and cabin crew
working in the lounges becausethey are DBS checked and have si
passes and that provider andalso have the customer service
cost customer facing skills, tobe able to to be able to manage
a lounge situation. So there area number of things we needed to

(57:01):
put in place in order to justprotect people. And that was one
of them. We said you need to beaircrew. But actually there have
also been a number of people whosaid, Look, I'm not aircrew, but
I can do this. You know I canI'm accruing officers there Can
I help with some admin and I'veworked in press Can I offer my
services in media, which hasbeen amazing. And they've come

(57:22):
from all the different airlinesin the UK, including airlines
that aren't even based here.
We've got volunteers from KLM.
And Norwegian obviously has abase here. But we've got united
airways and American Airlines,and Emirates, and Qantas. All
sorts of airlines, including allthe UK airlines in the mix as
well. which is fantastic.
Because what everyone'sdiscovered is doesn't matter

(57:43):
what colour uniform you wear, weare all the same people because
we all do the same job. So weget each other

sort of full industry after speaking of the
doesn't matter what colouruniform you wear, you do get
people to turn up in theiruniforms, don't you?

Yes, absolutely.
So the point of that, I mean, wehad to get permission from the
airlines for that. And I've beenvery lucky over the years to
have a good working relationshipwith management at my airline.
Maybe mainly because I worked atLuton, and that's where our
bases are sort of adminheadquarters are so you've kind
of see people there, but alsobecause I just talked to people

(58:23):
all the time. So I don't worryabout what their job is. I just
talked to people because they'reinteresting. So I texted our
Director of flight ops and said,I'm just doing this thing and
can we please get permissionfrom you to allow people to wear
uniforms? And by the way, canyou text all your flight ops
mates and ask them for theirairlines as well? And he went,
Yeah, no problem. Absolutely.

(58:45):
His he has a sister who worksthe NHS, so he was all over it,
and really supportive. And hethere's a whatsapp group for
directors of flight ops whoknew.
He justhe just put a message on there.
And so can you all agree to thisas well? And they did so which
was amazing. So yeah, so theuniform is there to

(59:06):
differentiate. So to identifyyou as being air crew so that
people know what you're there todo and, and also it helps
obviously, in lockdowns ifyou're travelling to a hospital
in a uniform. And airlineworkers are key workers, but
also our lounge volunteers arekey workers. So they're allowed
to go and do things. And it justgives people a sense. Yeah, I

(59:28):
just think it would be slightlydifferent. If you just you
wouldn't want to turn up injeans and a T shirt and say, I'm
here to look after you that justgives a different feel to it. So
which which really, reallyhelps. But obviously,
inevitably, over the yearthey've been redundancies or
people that feel their airlineshaven't behaved in a way that
makes them proud. So they eithercan't or don't want to wear

(59:50):
their airline uniforms anymore.
So we've provided a wing manuniform which is very literally
I say uniform I mean, it's ascarf or a tie and a lanyard and
a pin, which you then wear witha smart shirt and smart trousers
or skirt. So, you know, becausewe wanted people to still feel
that they were part of thewingman family, even if they'd
lost their airline. So

Dave Rogers (01:00:10):
yeah, because I look at the look at the tagline
on the website says airline crewcoming together to support the
well being of frontline NHSstuff during the covid 19.
outbreak. But have you foundit's worked the other way as
well. And your way manvolunteers have also got some of
that support that they may haveneeded, whether they realise

(01:00:31):
they needed it or didn't realisethey needed it. But getting
involved has helped them too.

Emma Henderson (01:00:36):
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I still
get messages all the time frompeople saying, thank you so much
for creating wingmen you'vesaved my life, or you've given
me something to float, I mean,the saving my life message, I
was like, Wow. You know, we'vemade a profound difference to
the lives of our air crewvolunteers that we had no idea

(01:00:57):
what's going to happen, andactually wouldn't know about if
they didn't actually bother totell us as well, you know, the
fact that they want to tell uswhat a massive difference is
made to them. Because it's givenpeople a sense of purpose. It's
given people a reason to get outof bed in the morning, put their
uniforms on all our uniform. ButI think when you go to work, and

(01:01:17):
it doesn't really matter whatindustry you work in, when you
work with a group of people thatall do the same thing. You have
this kind of sense ofcamaraderie amongst yourselves,
you know, pilots just like totalk about pilots stuff. I
imagine sports journalists liketo talk about sports journalism
stuff, as you know, I think thatyou get each other You all know

(01:01:38):
people in the industry that youcan, you know, have you heard
about this? Have you seen this?
So when you remove that frompeople by say, Well, you can't
go to work and you can't leaveyour house. That's really,
really difficult for a lot ofpeople. And of course, everybody
went into this from a differentpoint of view as well. So it's
not like everybody went intothis going yet. I'm completely

(01:02:00):
okay with my life. We all hadmaybe elderly parents, or
relationship problems or, orchildren struggling with things
or money problems, or whateverit was, they were that we all
had that stuff that we carriedinto COVID. And COVID has only
made that worse. So actuallybeing able to go out and spend a
day in a lounge with somebodywhere you're it gives you two

(01:02:22):
things. It gives you the thecamaraderie and friendship and
support, but it also gives you areally massive sense of well
being to know that you'rehelping other people, and then
the NHS staff that we've beenbenefiting. It just makes it
there's something about doingthat for nothing. That makes you
just feel good about the world.

(01:02:44):
You know,

Ben Hall (01:02:45):
I think everyone's realised in the last year or so
the importance of having thatsense of purpose. Yeah, I think
a lot of people that arefurloughed or made redundant,
just feel completely lost.
Because I mean, especially inaviation, sort of being a pilot
that is it's not it's not reallya job, it's kind of who you are
kind of defines you a littlevery much. So absolutely. And I
felt that very keenly. You know,even before I took redundancy, I

(01:03:08):
was like, well, who am I? AndI've already been there, you
know, six years ago, when

I lost my medical, I turned up, we moved
house to remove to Bushey Heath,and I turned up there with my
children at boarding school andnot working. And I thought,
well, who am I, I'm a motherwhose children aren't here. I'm
an airline pilot who is notflying. And I'm a I'm a an able
bodied person who can't walkbecause of my illness. And, you

(01:03:36):
know, so I'd already beenthrough that once and been
through this journey of re rediscovery, I suppose. And then
to have that again this year,although I hadn't taken
redundancy yet. I got to sort ofApril May time I thought this is
good. This is worse than we allthought it was going to be. And
I was working hard on wingmen.
But at the same time, I washaving this massive identity
crisis because I was thinkingbut I'm Captain Emma. And now I
don't know who I am. You know,which has been quite a challenge

(01:03:59):
to overcome. But we've all hadto overcome it because we've all
actually had to dig deep and go,Okay, if I'm not going to be
Captain Emmer anymore, what elsecan I do? That's going to keep
me busy. And give me a sense ofpurpose. Give me something to
do. So obviously, wing man hasbeen there. But we've all found
other things we can do like yousetting up pilot base, you know,

(01:04:22):
absolutely found other thingsthat we're able to do. And I
really think that's going to besomething in the future for I
think pilots really take theirjobs for granted. And I think we
think it's our medicals, that'sgoing to stop us from working
normally. And actually, it's notit turns out, we all should have
something else I pass leaves.

(01:04:43):
And the number of people I knowwho've just turned their
attention to other things isjust astounding. And then
they're astonishingly good at itas well, which is wonderful to
see.

Did you enter the wing man bakeoff?

No

What?

I was a judge, so I couldn't. That was one of
the best job.

Yeah, he chose, he chose Well, what was the
standard? Like?

It was amazing.
It was absolutely brilliant. AndI just thought there was some
such fantastic designs that cameout of that. You know, there
was, I think one cake was like,done as a runway with a plane
landing on it. And I was like,how do you turn cake into that?
Brilliant, the only sad thingfor me is I didn't get to eat
any of it. Because it was alldone on looks. Because, you

(01:05:31):
know, the cakes were all aroundthe country. I kind of hoped
somebody might say, well, if yousend me your address, I can box
it up. But nobody did. So. Andwe've had some brilliant
challenges like that. So we didBake Off, and we've done them.
You know, we did the three peakschallenge we set for ourselves
in September, which was hugefun. And that is where the only

(01:05:52):
time I've ever sort of seen someof our volunteers actually was
going down for that. And we'vedid we did a wingman workout
weekend. And so we've been doingsome little things along the way
that are just to keep people. Sothere's done for fundraising.
But actually, it's also donewith the awareness that if you
get encouraged people get to getoutside and do stuff. That is

(01:06:15):
also good for people's wellbeing because we've all got to
get outside in the fresh airmore. And yeah, I said that
Baker Bake Off makes you feelgood as well. You know, who
doesn't love cake?

I'd be completely honest with me, that is the only
reason that you've decided toinvest in wingman wheels. So you
can go around and do regionalbake offs next year and try.

Yeah, you've got with? Absolutely that is the
only reason we need that bus.
And it's it has to be a bus tofit as much cake.

Yeah. Tell us about tell us about wingman wheels,
then because that seems to bethe big fundraising project at
the moment.

So as as things evolved, like we say last
summer, as things started toease off, a number of lounges
closed at the end of July,because there was a perception
that we were through the storm,and out the other car, exactly.
Who would have thought. But youknow, I don't know if you can

(01:07:19):
remember back that far, becausewe've had 28 lockdowns since
then. And things seemed to beeasing off. And the hospital
said, Well, actually, we'd liketo reclaim our space. And
therefore we need to, we need tojust close the lounge. And we'll
look at this look at revisitingit again in the future. And we

(01:07:42):
thought we're here. But there'sstill a need for wellbeing. And
there's still some places wehaven't been able to go to. And
also going forward, we've got tomake wingmen sustainable? Well,
we had two choices, we've eithergot to say, okay, we're going to
wind it all up, or we continue,but we make it sustainable going
forward. So it was notsustainable is at four lounges

(01:08:02):
being manned seven days a week,by air crew, if they're,
especially if they're going backto work. But even if they're not
going back to work, people needto earn money. So they go to
other paid employment, or theyjust were finding, you know,
we've got a bit of COVIDfatigue, people have been giving
so much for so long. And theyjust want a bit of a break,
which is completelyunderstandable and fair enough.

(01:08:24):
But we thought actually, if wecould have lounges that move
around, we can reach places wehaven't been able to go to yet.
But we can also make itsustainable, because we're
asking you to give us two weeksa year or two weeks, every two
years or whatever, rather thanthis kind of indefinite sort of
expectation that you're justgoing to be there forever. And

(01:08:46):
so we had already got this kindof lounge in a van concept,
which it wasn't actually thelounge it was the delivery of
things to hospitals so that wecould create lounges. But it
kind of sparked this idea thatwe could have mobile lounges and
sometimes during last summer,the idea of a bus came up and we

(01:09:09):
just grabbed it with open arms.
And actually one person inparticular a guy called rich
Gryphon, and he just loved theidea and having sort of been a
little bit hesitant about howmuch he wanted his involvement
and wing man to be because he'sgot other things on the boil. He
just went for and he said, Yeah,I love this idea. And he has
pardon the terrible pun driventhe bus project. And right from

(01:09:30):
then, I mean, literally, withina couple of days, two of them
had gone on and found out candyby bus and they went right we
found buses, we can find thoselike you love this so much. And
then so but then they said, Wellactually, if you can buy a bus,
let's find a place that you canreally buy a bus that actually
meets our needs. And we found aplace down in Kent that had the

(01:09:54):
perfect bus available. It'salready been converted sued by a
well known supermarket brand.
And that rhymes with middle. Andthey've been using it as a
mobile kitchen to go and do likecooking tours. Who knew, right?
And so it's, it's hard. It's gota glass roof that's been raised

(01:10:15):
so that even tall people canstand up in it. And it's got
fully fitted and plumbed inkitchen. I thought he looks
tall, even though you're sittingdown.

Ben Hall (01:10:24):
Far so don't fit in,

well, that you'll fit in our boss, they
have to come visit it. But it'sthis lovely. It's got wooden
floors of TV screen at the frontand a fully fitted kitchen at
the backs comfy seating in itthat's in our colours already.
And then when they took the rapoff the sign at the front, it
had a heartbeat on it. And wejust thought that is something

(01:10:47):
that, you know, we couldn't havepredicted. It was meant for us.
Yeah, so we basically put downdeposit on it. And certainly I
will will raise the money forthat no problem. And so we're
committed to a crowdfunding toraise 100,000 pounds. And we
raised it closed yesterday at25, which we're really actually

(01:11:08):
amazed about, because althoughit didn't reach the 100,000 we
had been looking for, we'veactually reached some of that by
getting funding from trusts aswell. So the rest of the funding
will come from corporateconversations we're having. But
to even raise 25 grand in thelast five weeks is astoundingly
good because of the situation wewere in, you know, a lot of

(01:11:31):
people don't have spare money togive. And if they do, they're
probably going to spend it onmaking themselves feel better.
Which is fair enough. So yeah,I'm really we're just amazed by
that. But we've also got, we'vebeen left with a number of
donations of things that we'renow going to need to decide what
to do with so we're gonnathere's gonna be something

(01:11:52):
coming with that in the future.
And that's things like, I mean,we've got a Eurofighter sim with
Conor McGregor, that has beendonated to us, because I happen
to know him. And, and also,because I've got connection at
last mouth, we've got all therunway lights from last year
mouse runway that was dug upthat are in a field offset my
house at the moment we're goingto get rid of. And we've got red

(01:12:13):
arrows memorabilia, we've gotgolfing weekends, we've got
hangar visits from loganair,we've got so much stuff that's
been given to us, and simulatorvisits as well. So some of that
stuff has been bid or has beenbought at the crowdfunder. But
some of it, we've still got. Sothere's going to be something
else coming up in the next fewmonths where we maybe have an

(01:12:35):
auction or something like that,to, you know, keep that sort of
thing going. And the next thingis that one bus is great, but
more buses is better. And so mydream would be to have six, so
that we've got one for Scotland,one for the North, one for the
southeast, one for London, onefor the Midlands, and one for
the Southwest, or something likethat. So that we can get around

(01:12:58):
people more and just provide abit more support. And we're
looking to use the buses andmobile vaccination centre as
well, which is where we'regetting some funding from the
NHS for. So there's all kinds ofthings coming out of this, that
are just really exciting, andjust, you know, going to carry
us into this year really, in aslightly different format. And

(01:13:20):
we'll probably end up with fiveor 10 static lounges as our
legacies, but the buses will bewhere our focus will be mainly
this year.

Ben Hall (01:13:29):
Is there any? Is there any way people can continue
giving you money now? How canpeople donate and help protect
women?

Yeah, absolutely. And the crowdfunding
page is still available andthere, that's
www.crowdfunder.co.uk, forwardslash wing man wheels. So it's
still there, and you can stilldonate to it. We also have a
just giving page as well. Orpeople can just contact us
directly, and we can give themthe bank account details and

(01:13:58):
they can make transfer. So itdepends on how people want to do
it, really.

Ben Hall (01:14:01):
And we'll pull those in the show notes as well. So
people

yeah, I'll send you there just giving. Yeah, so
some people might say, Well, Ihaven't got any money to give
you. But if you've got a skillthat you can use it you think
might benefit us, that is justas valuable as 1020 100,
whatever pounds, you know, youmight be, you might be a bus
fitter, you might you might thatmight be your thing you might be

(01:14:25):
as somebody who sprays, buses,or sprays, cars or whatever, you
can offer some time for that,you know, there's loads of ways
people can help us and actuallyin helping us, that's then
helping the NHS and that'shelping to keep us all sort of
afloat, but actually hopefullyhelping to get the country
moving again, because what wereally want is to get the
country moving again so we canall go back to work. And I don't

(01:14:49):
like the idea. I don't like thephrase going back to normal
because I don't think there is aback to normal when we've been
through what we've been through.
I prefer the going forward to anew normal kind of analogy. But
that's where we want to be,isn't it? Because we want to go
on holiday and we want to havebusiness trips, and we want to
see our friends and our familiesand our loved ones and things.
So that's the ultimate goal,isn't it?

I know how much you pilots love paperwork. So I
can't wait to see how many comeforward and put in for their
coach licence. So

well, you would probably not be surprised to
know that we already have anumber of people who are already
qualified coach drivers or ATVdrivers. And in fact, I've got
one friend in particular atLuton, who has been driving hgvs
for the last month or so twomonths, I think, to supplement
his income. And he said, I'mquite quite quiet in January,

(01:15:44):
use me as much as you want ondrive your bus for you, which is
fantastic. So they're allqueuing up. They're like, Can I
drive the bus? Please? Do I get?

There's a brilliant story about poor gas going
driving a London bus, pleasedon't get yourself in any
situations like that. Well throwa celebrity the keys.

No, that's never gonna happen. And the other
thing that's not going to happenis you know, what we're very
wary of is because the bus has araised roof, it means that it's
even less likely to go under lowbridges. So we've got to make
sure any routes that we take ourroutes where the bus can fit, so
there's no point. So yes, we cancome to there, if it's
surrounded by obstacles that arebus with a raised roof is not

(01:16:27):
going to fit through so.

So you've build something quite incredible. And
just listening to for thisamount of time, or just visiting
the website or hearing people'stestimonials. We've got a friend
of the show, who was one of yourvolunteers, and he talks in his
episode about how much it meantto him, which is actually the
reason I asked you whether ornot you'd noticed it had gone
the other way as well from thepeople involved from aviation.

(01:16:54):
You've already talked aboutlegacy. But what does project
women look like in a post COVIDworld?

Well, I think that project women has a shelf
life that lasts well beyondCOVID, because well being is
something that we all need. Andyes, certainly, people in the
NHS are always going to needwell being support and the
people we've spoken to andgetting the lounges established
have said, you know, what thishas done is pushed well being up
the agenda, which is somethingthey've been trying to do for

(01:17:24):
1012 years, whatever. Sofirstly, I hope that it's going
to leave behind the legacy ofwell being support in NHS
hospitals and NHS trusts. Andthere are places you know, like
in sorry, for example, where weset up a wingman lounge that
closed after a period of time asa wingman lounge, but the lounge

(01:17:45):
still runs as a well being huboperated by the hospital, which
is exactly what they needed andexactly where they should be. So
the fact that it's not run bywingman doesn't matter, because
it's the fact it's there, that'simportant. So raising the agenda
raising, it's on the agenda forNHS hospitals, absolutely
brilliant. But you know, as wego into the post COVID era,

(01:18:09):
whenever that may be, we're allgoing to need some wellbeing
support. So it might be thathospitals are sorted and have
processes in place, becauseDon't forget, they already have
well being support in place,it's just that it was
overstretched because effortshave been diverted elsewhere.
But you know, our local townsand our local cities and

(01:18:30):
villages are going to havepeople in them that needs some
support as well. So it mightwell be in the future that if
we've got buses, we might say,Well, you know, we'll contact
the mayor of the town and say,Look, we're coming to visit your
hospital. But if you want to putthe word out there anybody that
needs a bit of well beingsupport in the future can come
and get that. And it might wellbe as well that it's not there

(01:18:51):
limited to where crew doing thesupport, we might find that
we've got other volunteers whoare able to come along and say,
Well, actually, I'd be happy to,you know, make cups of tea and
talk to people. And I'd love tosee that become a reality. And
actually, you know, as part ofmy sort of post airline career
world, and I've recently joinedthe trust of local local

(01:19:15):
hospital, which is going to beredeveloped into a health and
wellbeing Centre for the town. Iactually went for a paid job
interview, but didn't get thejob, but ended up as a trustee.
But, but I'm very excited aboutit. And I think that well being
is something we've all knownthat we've needed for a long
time. But we're all much morecomfortable about using that

(01:19:35):
word now and saying wellactually, you know, and asking
for help as well and say this,it's okay not to be okay
campaign and things like that.
We're all much more aware of thethings that we need going into
the future now. And I reallywould, yeah, as far as I'm
concerned, project wing man willbe here for years to come either
in a static lounge, where we asI say with our legacy lounges

(01:19:58):
Which, yeah, there are probablya maximum of 10 of those is
probably what we could supportor with our buses. And you know,
the bus plan is a five yearplan. So you know, I'm sort of
hoping that in five years timewe'll be well out of this and or
meeting up in pubs and lookingback so hard to remember that
Christmas when we couldn't seeanyone, you know?

God, I hope so. He said,

it'll be a lot sooner than that.

For me to Emma Henderson, MBA captain, Mr.
Anderson MBA. I hope you getthat on a business card one day.
I will. Thank you so much. Thishas been such a great
conversation, I'm very muchlooking forward to seeing not
just where the project wing manjourney goes, but where your
journey goes to, because I thinkit's gonna be a very exciting

(01:20:56):
one for you.

And thank you.
Thank you so much for sayingthat. And it's been a real
pleasure. It's been greatspeaking to you both. And I've
really enjoyed it. So thanks somuch for having me.

Ben Hall (01:21:07):
Thank you. Thanks for listening to the pilot base
podcast. We'll be back next weekwith another great guest from
the aviation industry. Don'tforget to check out on new
career platform at pilotbase.com and all the socials at
pilot base HQ. If you enjoyedthis podcast, don't forget to
subscribe and right interview

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}An interview with the founder of Project Wingman

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An interview with the founder of Project Wingman

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