I am not in a position to judge, but I can say that the fact she flew, “solo” or not, in a beautiful Boeing Stearman was inspiring.
All of these 21st Century long distance flights are to a large extent made infinitely easier by a constellation of geo stationary satellites.
I havn’t read any pprune posts on this matter but I must say that when I saw the advertisment on the TV for the the program (I can’t remember which channel) I thought I would have a look. Ten minutes in I realised that this was a non story. Bi-plane, back up twin engine crew plane, a slew of camera men, no expense funding……..to make a TV program for the non pilot public! She certainly is not a modern day Amy Johnson.
Hmm… It’s all been thoroughly unedifying, though I think the decision to rescind the trophy was probably correct.
Now Jay Sata has been ‘outed’ as Mike Flynn, any ideas as to why he decided to wage the campaign? I asked him on the other thread a while back and his answers seemed as evasive as TCTs. I can understand Sam Rutherford’s perspective (and by comparison his contributions were measured) but I find it odd that someone who is ostensibly not directly involved would devote such a lot of time to it.
Do be careful mentioning names here in a negative context… it adds no information value and we have no money to fight somebody with. Leave the dirt to the “dirt sites” – they love it because their advert click-throughs go up 10x 
In fact one of the players in this saga has just reappeared here after a long time and dropped a post onto the end of an old thread… just to let everybody know he is watching
The wider question here, and the main reason I posted the original post, is whether these publicity stunts bring more women into GA.
I don’t see how they do. They are just too ridiculous.
Everybody can see that this stuff, and the other high media profile female exploits of e.g. Carol Vorderman, are mostly about self publicity. The whole project is integrated with the media coverage. You land (well, if you have been flying at all), sort out the hair, get changed into tight clothing and high heels, and stand next to the plane for a photo opportunity with a prearranged and briefed media crew.
In the real world no woman would fly a plane like that, or hang out around an airfield, otherwise she would be ridiculed, undermined, and would never be taken seriously. The “male equivalent version” would be Daniel Craig (etc) getting a job as a swimming teacher at a girls’ boarding school That wouldn’t work for very long either…
And those who know something about flying will know the flying is mostly trivial – especially TST’s, with the “very close support” and short legs necessitated by the aircraft type. Nearly all the work on a project like that goes into ground support, and there is a massive fundraising effort behind it all. A lot of people make a lot of money on the back of it…
It very little to do with aviation really.
IMHO these “flying related” media projects are fronted mostly by women because a project fronted by a man would never get the media coverage and would not raise the money. It would just be too boring. Also following in the footsteps of some famous aviation person from almost 100 years ago is a great excuse – despite the flying being trivial today in comparison. It works on the assumption that women find it harder to fly a plane therefore if one does manage to do it, it is a newsworthy event – which is ridiculous.
Peter, I think Carol Vorderman is doing much good though. OK, her round-the-world exploit is following a rather well beaten trail, but this is combined with excellent work she does for the Air Cadets (I’m a volunteer in the Air Training Corps) which has brought true benefit. She is succeeding in selling herself as an aviator who happens to be glamorous. TCT elected to ply the exact opposite; a glam bird who happens to fly. Why else have a website named birdinabiplane? From the outset she sought to maximise on the gender issue.
One other thing – much of Carol’s funding is coming from her own pocket.
OK Dave; interesting – great to know.
RobertL18C wrote:
All of these 21st Century long distance flights are to a large extent made infinitely easier by a constellation of geo stationary satellites.
Thread drift and apologies for pedantry
GNSS constellations are not generally geo-stationary. Most (if not all) sit around a medium earth orbit and cycle around the earth every 12 hours or so.
Maybe @RobertL18C was talking about XM Radio, which I found very useful to stay entertained on long XC flights in the US. 
I don’t get it. How could she lie about her flying when there is a whole crew with her taking videos, interviews and so on?
Sounds to me someone prematurely gave her a ‘trophy" for something they thought she did, but didn’t really do. Then they later on found out what she really was doing.
I underPeter wrote:
Do be careful mentioning names here in a negative context
I understand the reasoning behind this, but on the other hand it may well be the most important bit of information in the whole story. If one day I find myself looking for flight support for a flight in Africa, it is good to know which providers think it is acceptable to engage in mud-fights with their ex clients. However bad your experience may have been with a client, I think nothing justifies shaming and blaming them in public. It really should make any prospective client very wary to see other clients being treated in that way. If someone is willing to engage in such mud fights, nothing guarantees you that you won’t be treated similarly the day things don’t go the way that such a service provider would have liked.
It is for such reasons that in the civilized world, we also have a court system and no longer the village pillory.
