I’m UK’s first female fighter pilot – but Tom Cruise got one up on me with flying boast at Top Gun: Maverick premiere
AS the UK’s first fighter pilot, Jo Salter lived by the RAF motto, ‘Through adversity to the stars.’
But last week she encountered a different kind of star when she met Tom Cruise on the red carpet, after a last minute invitation to the Top Gun: Maverick premiere in London’s West End.
The Hollywood legend made a beeline for Jo, 53, after the film and compared notes on their flying skills - playing top trumps over their experience of G-force, the impact a human body feels due to huge acceleration in a plane.
“Tom said he was delighted to meet me and we talked about the different aeroplanes we'd flown,” Jo tells The Sun.
“I asked him the G-force he’d pulled saying ‘I doubt you'd flown 9-G’, which is the highest a human body is able to withstand.
“He said, ‘Not in that aircraft’ but said he had flown 9-G in another plane and I've only flown 7-G so he trumped me.”
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I rose like Pheonix
When Jo joined the Royal Airforce in 1986, the year the original movie was released, women flying in the RAF and the US Air Force was still illegal.
But 30 years on, the sequel has moved with the times - with female fighter pilot Phoenix, played by Monica Barbaro, taking to the skies alongside Cruise’s Maverick.
Jo - who got her wings in 1992 - says the character brought back memories of her own time as a lone woman in the male dominated squadron
“I couldn't help thinking about myself,” she says.
“At one point they're playing pool and Phoenix is the one woman in a bar full of men. I felt that they balanced it right because that was realistic.
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“There were many different incidents that evoked memories of being the only female in the squadron.
“But also what they all go through in the film brought back memories. Flying can be exhilarating but it can be tough too, so it is a mixture of challenge versus adventure.”
'Loneliness' of being first
Originally from Bournemouth, Jo joined the air force at 18, intending to train as an engineering officer, but decided to become a pilot after the government announced the women would be allowed to fly some military planes, in 1989.
Three years later, the ban on women piloting fast jet planes was overturned and she went on train in a Tornado, becoming the first British woman declared combat ready, in 1995.
Despite the discrimination she faced in her journey to the top, Jo says she never saw it as a barrier.
“I have two big brothers as well as a sister and, growing up, we didn't have male or female jobs in the house so whether we were sweeping the drive or cooking, it was gender irrelevant," she says.
“That was a gift my mum gave us and it never crossed my mind that I couldn't do something that guys were doing.
"When the ban was lifted I thought ‘Why shouldn't I?’ It's just a brain, operating a machine.
“That's not to say that being the first to do something isn't hard. There is a loneliness that comes with it. When you are trying to achieve something which is really hard work, irrelevant of gender, then being different and being the first is tough.”
Controllers ignored radio calls
As a pilot with 617 Squadron, Jo saw active service in 1995, policing the no fly zone over southern and northern Iraq.
Like many women in a male-dominated world she says there were a few “MeToo moments” when she faced sexist comments and behaviour but she never felt unsafe around her colleagues.
“During my third time on operations in northern Iraq, flying out of a base in Turkey, there had been reports of sexual assault on the US base and the guys wouldn't let me walk home alone,” she says.
“I still felt quite safe but they insisted, just in case.
“They were really protective because we become like a family in a squadron, when you spend a lot of time together.”
She admits the male banter sometimes got “tiring” but adds: “I'm quite tough and resilient and often it was easier to let things go.”
The most blatant sexism she faced was from the Saudi traffic controllers when she patrolled southern Iraq.
“We used to take off from Saudi Arabia,” she explains. “When we made radio calls to the Saudi controllers, I would get absolutely no response.
“I had to ask my male navigator to make the call.”
'I didn't know fear until I had kids'
Although Jo’s tours in Iraq came between the two Gulf wars, her squadron were still sent on dangerous sorties and risked coming under attack.
“They were free to fire on us at times, so there was always adrenaline,” she says.
“You have to be on your top form. It's a long sortie, flying four and a half hours at a time.
“I was never shot at but I was illuminated by surface to air missiles over northern Iraq, meaning the infrared tracker hit my aircraft. Luckily they didn't fire.”
But the brave pilot was never afraid.
“Adrenaline is the word I use,” she says. “I don't think I ever understood what fear was until I had children. I just didn’t feel it.
“But from the moment the girls were born. I’d be walking with the buggy and suddenly imagine it disappearing off.
“Even now I don't feel fear about myself, only when I think about something happening to the girls.”
Changing times
After 12 years of service, Jo left the RAF in 2000 following the birth of oldest daughter Jess, 23. She is also mum to 19-year-old Beth.
“There were a multitude of reasons that I left but partly it was the attention I got for being the first female pilot,” she says.
“But also, I was always going to be the first to do everything and driving for inclusivity. It was quite good to step out and let someone else step into the fight, because what I was doing shouldn't have needed to have been done in the first place.”
Two decades on, Jo says the military’s attitude to women has completely changed as her own perspective on her groundbreaking role.
“I think the loneliness I felt came from my age and I don't think I'd be lonely now,” she says. “I'm happy in my own company now.
“Also, if I could go back and do it all again now, I would be much more forthright.
“If somebody said something inappropriate, I would say ‘Did you really say that?’
“That's both age and knowing that it’s okay to speak out today because things have changed. I grew up in a very different age than girls do today.”
Jo didn’t hand in her wings completely but spent 16 years in the RAF volunteer reserves, taking 1,000 cadets into the air to experience exhilarating barrel rolls and loop the loops, and teaching them rudimentary flying skills.
“Many young people who would get in, look at me and say, ‘I didn't know women could fly,” she says.
“It's so important that we have different role models to make it accessible because to become a pilot, it doesn't matter what your background is or what your education is, it's about hand eye coordination and ability.”
Now a high flyer in the boardroom, as Global Transformative Leader with accountancy giant PWC, Jo misses the rush of take off and has one aviation ambition left.
“I've flown the Tornado, the Harrier, a Jaguar and a few years ago I was lucky enough to fly with the Red Arrows,” she says.
“Now I’m trying to get behind the controls of a Typhoon, which would be an amazing jet to fly.”
In the meantime, she is angling for a role in Top Gun 3 - after becoming Tom Cruise’s biggest fan.
“Meeting Tom was amazing,” she says. “He spent an hour and a half before the premiere signing autographs, then he made a point of speaking to me and gave me his full attention.
"When we’d finished speaking he brought Beth into the conversation and remembered her name.
“It says a lot that somebody bothers to spend that time after what must have been a very long day.”
Jo was invited to the premiere by the - who support crew members and industry workers facing hardship - after mentioning on BBC Breakfast that she’d love to go.
She and Beth bought new outfits in 40 minutes and rushed to Central London but she says it was worth the last minute panic.
“It's a brilliant film,” she says. “There's so much realistic flying because the actors were taken up in the air so you can see the G-force pulling their faces.
“The only thing that's wrong is that the pilots have their masks down when they're speaking. Masks have a little voice activated switch inside so if you drop them, the radio operator would hear static but I understand they do that so you can see their faces.
“I absolutely loved the film. The noise and roar in the cinema is fantastic.”
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Jo applauds the inclusion of a female fighter pilot, saying it reflects the change in military thinking since the first film, “as it should.”.
“In the 30 years that we've had between Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick there a huge difference in the Air Force when it comes to gender balance.
“When we think about it, what a massive change there has been in our lifetimes.”
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Top Gun 2: Maverick is out now
