Chinook Crew 'Chick': Highs and Lows of Forces Life from the Longest Serving Female RAF Chinook Force Crewmember

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I joined the Air forces to do a job and certainly on Chinooks, you don’t arrive on a Chinook and think ‘ohh I don’t want to go to Iraq or Afghanistan’ because that’s exactly what you want to do. This involved recovering wounded soldiers from the battlefield, often under fire, and witnessing them both die and indeed come back to life at her feet in the cabin of her Chinook.

Her best friend Anna died of cancer, and the marriage to her Special Forces husband – whom she’d met serving in Iraq – fell apart, ending in divorce. I was only halfway through my first operation when I went to Iraq; I ended up getting my first Iraq medal and came back.If your score isn't where you'd like it to be, think about the things you love, the activities that bring you joy, and consciously integrate them into your day. I was expecting yet another mediocre aircrew memoir with a few humorous stories, acronyms, and inflated tales of daring deeds. Her career began at the age of 19, and she quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a sergeant after basic training. Her narrative style is engaging and filled with vivid descriptions that make you feel like you're right there in the aircraft, experiencing the adrenaline rush and the camaraderie that comes with military aviation. Let's celebrate resilience and strength, acknowledging that triumph over adversity is a journey we can all embrace.

On her busiest day of operations in 2008, she and her crew flew 14 separate sorties – including one where five British soldiers had been killed at a forward operating base. Her biggest honour of all her duties, however, was serving on the Medical Emergency Response Team, or MERT, flying ambulance as it was more commonly known. She is now living in Basingstoke near the airbase she worked at, RAF Odiham — where the Chinooks are based — after spending a total of 17-and-a-half years flying with the RAF’s Chinook fleet. Remember, we're all on this journey together, and a supportive community can make all the difference.

Having written about aviation for more than two decades, I’ve interviewed many hundreds of different people in myriad roles. They’ll stop something else working and they’ll fall out the sky, whereas for us, we’re pretty okay. Succeeding in overcoming her demons, Liz is now a highly sought-after motivational speaker who candidly speaks about her battle with mental health and shares inspirational anecdotes of her military career.

At the age of 21, McConaghy was the youngest aircrew personnel to be deployed to Iraq, as well as the only female crew member on the Chinook for four years. McConaghy finished frontline service in 2014 as British forces pulled out of Afghanistan and, five years later, was given a medical discharge from the RAF to begin a new life as a civilian. I laughed at some of the silly things that happen in war, I think there is a part in the human brain that insists on finding humor even among horror, but the author told of great personal sorrows as well.Aviation people have a very different slant on life, possibly because they know how quickly things can go wrong.