Whirly Girl's Astar Scholarship

Georgina Hunter-Jones

Helicopter Life won the chance to experience an AS350B2 rating in Texas

The Whirly Girls, an international organisation for women helicopter pilots, was started by Jean Ross Howard Phelan in 1955, who hoped to create an organization where women pilots could share information, friendship and support. That she succeeded rather well is shown by the fact there are now more than 1,372 Whirly Girls from 42 different countries across the globe. The scholarship programme was initiated in 1968 after Whirly Girl number 84, Doris Mullen, was killed in a fixed wing accident. Over the years the number and benefit of the scholarships has risen until today, when there are ten different scholarships, now worth more than $45,000 in total.

In February 2006, I was lucky enough to win the American Eurocopter scholarship and went out to Grand Prairie in Texas in October to take the course on the AS350B2 (known as the ASTAR in the USA or the Single Squirrel in the UK. As this was an American course I will use the term ASTAR).

Since the Twin Towers disaster of 9/11, all non-Americans have to prove a 'need to fly' in the USA and so, as a non-American, the first thing I had to do was to apply for...