In Conversation with Charlotte Storey

Read about Charlotte's incredibly inspiring story

What inspired you to fly? 

Aged 11, I met Burgi Tilt, an Austrian resistance fighter and pilot during WW2. She told incredible stories about landing planes in the dark on microbially small improvised airstrips in Bavaria to collect injured comrades and to drop off supplies. Growing up, she was my role model. Every weekend in the flying season, she took to the controls of a light aircraft in her twin-set and pearls.

I was born into a working class family where money was scarce, and as a consequence, life was rather mundane. By contrast, she was this exquisitely glamorous creature who had led this extraordinary life; her stories of nocturnal flying missions under enemy fire lodged themselves in my imagination and began to germinate. The desire to fly kept irritating me, but it was an itch that would take another forty years to scratch. 

Can you outline your experience so far?

My subsequent career couldn’t have taken me further from aviation. I trained as an actor and my first job in London’s West End was in Sam Mendes’s acclaimed production of Cabaret. I went on to become a well-regarded actor musician; as a saxophonist, I played with artists including Rod Stewart and Natalie Cole. 

Many people aspire to have careers on the stage, but for me, there was something missing, and all the time I was touring, I was far more interested in the aircraft we travelled in than I was in being part of the performance. 

Back then, playing a role, or hiding behind a musical instrument masked my woeful lack of self worth. My brother began dating a woman who was training to be a pilot, and in between gigs, I helped her with her ground school revision. I knew that the only thing that separated her ambition to be a pilot from mine was her undaunted self-belief. I knew that if I could master my issues around imposter syndrome, I could master an aircraft. 

Inspired by her success, I planned to save up enough money to take a course of flying lessons. I was in my mid-30s by this point; it was now or never. Then one night, on stage, I swung my baritone sax onto its sling, and both of my shoulders dislocated. After that initial event, the dislocations happened every time I opened a packet of crisps, put on a coat, and every time I sneezed. I was diagnosed with a complex connective tissue disorder and my career as a performer was over. 

I couldn’t imagine a life outside of the arts, so I went back to university, and carried out extensive postgraduate study in classical theatre. My research led me to a career in actor training, to include developing strategies for ameliorating performance anxiety. I had no idea at the time that these skills would be as applicable to women in the aviation community as they are to performers. 

Within a few months of my diagnosis, I’d gone from international touring as a performing artist, to losing my home, and my independence. Between 2008 and 2018, I had three consecutive shoulder replacements. The last failed within weeks of being implanted. To lift my mood, my partner bought me a flight over the Venetian Islands for my 50th birthday. By this time, I'd had my right shoulder and humerus completely removed, leaving me with no bones between the shoulder and the elbow. The pilot who flew me that day had a missing right thumb. I asked him how he’d managed to get his licence, and he said, “well, you know aviation is a very disabled-friendly industry”. I told him about my ambition to fly, and instead of looking at my flail arm and laughing, he encouraged me to apply for a flying scholarship, and put me in touch with Flying Scholarships for Disabled People (FSDP). 

In the autumn of 2018, I applied, and was invited to RAF Cranwell for two days of interviews and selection, and all the time I was thinking there would be no hope of being successful. My inner assassin got to work on fleshing out the two principal barriers to my success: the first, I was a woman, and the second, I had an upper body disability. 

There's a huge difference between flying with a lower body disability and flying without the use of an arm. If you have lower body issues, there are standard hand-operated rudder adaptations with which to steer the plane. These can be fitted to most standard light aircraft. If your arm is missing, or the use of an arm missing, it's the reaching forward that becomes dangerous and problematic. It's the delicate interplay between stick and throttle on takeoff and landing where the plane has to be at the right speed and height at the right time that makes flying with one hand very challenging indeed. As every arm injury is unique, there are no standard adaptations for pilots with upper body disabilities, in addition to which, throttles are never in a standard position. This lack of uniformity at the point of manufacture is the principal barrier to flight for those with arm limitations. 

I clearly made the right impression on the FSDP selection panel who awarded me a scholarship. I was sponsored by Lockheed Martin and completed my scholarship at Old Sarum in Salisbury, under the guidance of the incredible Fiona Luckhurst, the owner of Shadow Aviation Ltd. She found a way for me to fly from the starboard seat, and enabled me to control the throttle by attaching my hand to the lever and shifting my body weight backwards and forwards to give control authority. 

What did your scholarship from 'Flying Scholarships for Disabled People' (FSDP) include and how has it helped you?

The scholarship funded twenty one hours of flying alongside tuition to sit two ground school exams in Air Law and Human Performance and Limitations. I was based at Shadow Aviation Ltd at Old Sarum in Wiltshire, sadly no longer a home to light aircraft, and my training room had been used by allied pilots in WW2. The building itself housed the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection, and it was incredible to be surrounded by retired pilots and aviation enthusiasts who kept that fascinating archive going. They were all so encouraging and let me climb in and out of the planes on display whenever I pleased. I was in paradise.  I was trained to fly a C42 by a trio of outstanding pilots who also happened to be extraordinary people.

In addition  to being notable aviators with impressive credentials, they were also very expert in the pastoral aspects of managing the expectations of a person with a complex disability. Fiona Luckhurst, (also Chairman of the Microlight Panel of Examiners), headed the team, assisted by Kathryn Hutchings and Raymond Proost. 

The mentoring support that comes with the FSDP scholarship connects pilots under training to former scholars who come alongside you during your training journey. They know how the scholarship works and how you’re likely to react to the pressure of a new learning environment, and are on-hand to impart realistic wisdom when you need it, from selection, right through to the completion of your training and beyond, as you settle back into your life.

The scholarship trains two pilots alongside each other. A lot of thought and discussion goes into the selection process. Scholars share accommodation and, aside from the flying, all of your time on the programme is spent learning with each other or learning about each other. I was paired with a lovely man with whom I had a strong intellectual connection. He was a wheelchair-user, and watching him overcome his obstacles to getting in and out of the aircraft, and mastering the controls was as satisfying as doing those things for myself. We really supported each other and have kept in touch ever since. That’s the beauty of FSDP. They have a Big Wind App for former and current scholars. You remain connected to the family for as long as you wish to engage. I went to RIAT this year and saw all of my old flying scholarship friends, mentors and instructors, in addition to re-connecting with my sponsors, Lockheed Martin. We also have social events that reunite us throughout the year. I’ve been invited to become a mentor in support of the 2024 intake of scholars which is a real honour. 

The last day of my scholarship in September 2019 was a day of joy and sorrow. I passed both of my ground school exams and had learnt so much in the hours I’d been airborne, not only about navigating and flying, but about myself. The experience was way beyond the transaction of a disabled person flying over pretty coast and countryside. It was transformational in giving me the emotional intelligence to know how to walk forwards when the scholarship was complete. 

Throughout the month-long training, self-imposed limitations evaporated. During every flight, the instructors encouraged proactivity, and by allowing me to incrementally master the controls of the aircraft, I began to learn to master myself. They gave me strategies for planning and managing the process of flying that I now apply to my life and business. The theory of equilibrium; of balancing opposing forces, is as applicable to life as it is to flight.

Can you explain what it takes to fly an aircraft one-handed, what challenges do you face and how do you approach them?

On day one, the most challenging aspect of the scholarship for me was working out how I would operate the controls without the use of my right arm. My flail arm prevented me from reaching the arm forwards, and it took the first week of my 4 week scholarship to find a solution to controlling the aircraft. I experimented with cushions to support the elbow, removing the harness from my right shoulder to allow me to shift my body weight forwards, and found myself much better able to control the aircraft from the starboard seat where the stick was in my left hand. We attached velcro to a flying glove to allow my right hand to remain on the throttle, which then enabled me to shift my weight forwards and backwards to control the height of the aircraft. 

If you’re forced to approach problems from a different angle, as you always are when you’re disabled, you inevitably achieve creative outcomes. I think having just the one arm to use in flight makes me a much more inventive pilot. I’m lucid under pressure and this comes from having to find contingencies when things don’t go to plan. The unexpected happens in almost all of my daily encounters with doors, and clothes, and people, so I’m accustomed to quick thinking. I had a recent mid-air crisis when the radio switch on the stick broke, so I couldn’t make calls on re-entering the circuit. I managed to lean my right knee onto the manual switch on the cockpit dashboard in order to be able to announce my final approach. If you have the use of both arms, you’ll use a knee pad and write down ATC instructions to repeat back while steering with the other hand. I lack the use of that additional hand, so the memorisation skills I learned as an actor come into play on these occasions. This act of memorisation requires huge amounts of concentration when I’m coming back into a circuit, or crossing through airspace. These moments can become quite tense when I’m flying alone.  

I fly a plane with manual flaps. In order to engage them, I place the weight of my flail arm temporarily on the stick to keep the nose down while deploying the flap lever with my left hand. This all takes hours of trial and error in order to achieve consistently effective outcomes.

What advice do you have for someone applying for a scholarship?

If you have a driving licence and are registered disabled, you can apply for a flying scholarship through FSDP. If successful at selection, the expectation is that you commit wholeheartedly to the training programme. At the time of my scholarship, I worked full time and was accustomed to early starts and long days, but even for me, flying was exhausting; the workload in the air takes its toll on energy levels, and fatigue affects many scholars during their training. 

The scholarship represents a significant financial investment on the part of the sponsor, and each sponsor takes a personal interest in the progress of the scholars they support. In return for this investment, much is expected of each scholar. It’s important to state that FSDP isn’t about enabling disabled people to complete their flight training, nor is it merely a flight experience. It’s an opportunity to learn about yourself through the process of piloting an aircraft. You come to the programme alone, and leave behind your support network. Your whole experience with the instructors is intensely focused on the flight training, the purpose of which is to enable you to transcend your limitations, and embrace your possibilities; this can only be fully realised if you immerse yourself in the training and shut out all of the distractions of your life beyond the hangar. This is a really necessary part of the transformation process. It strips you of your dependencies, and enables you to see your life in isolation. It enabled me to address issues around self-worth, and when I completed the scholarship programme, I knew I wanted to see my training through to completion. My instructors had enabled me to realise my potential both as a pilot and as a person.

Covid grounded me for nearly a year, but during lockdown, I completed my LAPL ground school exams at Bournemouth Airport. After restrictions were lifted, I moved to Dunkeswell Airfield in Devon, where I joined a C42 syndicate and completed my flying training in July 2021.

Have you been inspired by any other aviators?

I was so fortunate to be taught by the team at Shadow Aviation Ltd. On the surface, my disability prevented me from flying a majority of aircraft, but from the outset, Fiona Luckhurst and the team tried a variety of options to enable me to reach the controls, and refined and refined the process until I was finally in command of the aircraft. They taught me so much more than a flying syllabus, I learnt that feedback is an opportunity to realise growth, and not confirmation of failure. They taught me to show compassion to myself, and to learn to love the disability I carry - post-training I see my flail arm not as an encumbrance, but as a superpower. 

What does your future in aviation hold?

Since qualifying, I've built up 100 hours of solo time, and am about to embark on my journey to become a flying instructor. I would like to complete the full circle by returning to FSDP as an instructor, enabling other disabled pilots to fulfil their personal and aviation ambitions.

Learning to fly has really transformed my view of myself, and I’ve experienced exponential post-traumatic growth. I’m now the Operational Director of my own business, Leader Empowerment (www.leaderempowerment.co.uk), a training programme to support individuals to face their fears, to engage with a growth mindset, and to focus on cultivating strategies for achieving the improbable. If I can fly a plane with one hand, there's really nothing I feel I can't do, and I want to pass on the transformational self-mastery skills I developed on that aviation journey to as many people as possible. 

Since qualifying, I’ve applied my academic interest in performance anxiety management to helping anxious aviators to overcome their fear of landing. I’d encourage any women for whom this fear is a barrier to realising their aviation ambitions to get in touch for a chat: info@leaderempowerment.co.uk

Leader Empowerment exists to help people trapped by a lack of self-belief. It addresses deficits in psychological, physical and vocal authority factors, and gets them into a powerful head-space from which to realise their full potential. The business is very much inspired by my aviation journey which was made possible by the combined investment from FSDP and Lockheed Martin. I’ve been invited to be a speaker at the Lockheed Martin AGM in late October which is an incredible honour. I hope to inspire them with the evidence of my personal transformation, made possible through their investment in me. On that occasion, I’m not only proud to represent women in aviation, but also to draw attention to the extraordinary potential of every disabled woman within their industry.

In the medium term, I’m looking to purchase my own aircraft. In the C42, I’m limited to low speeds and short journeys. My family is based in Switzerland, so I'm looking at something more robust to enable me to make frequent visits to see them in the Alps.