Nicky Smith

Squadron Leader Nicola Elizabeth Smith is a retired British Royal Air Force officer. She was the first female military helicopter pilot in the United Kingdom and in 2002 she became the first female to command a flying squadron.

Early life Smith was born in Colchester. She lived at Merlin Way in Whittington near Lichfield. Her father was Major John Smith, who was in the Royal Army Educational Corps, in Germany. Her mother was Rosemary, with sister Amanda. She attended King Edward VI School, Lichfield, where she was head girl, at the same time as the actress Helen Baxendale. In November 1985 she was picked to play hockey for the Staffordshire Under 18 team, where she played in goal. Her sister also played hockey. In 1986 she gained A-levels in Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Geography.

She studied aeronautical engineering at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where she joined Cambridge University Air Squadron in 1986. she passed out from the RAF College Cranwell in 1990 with the Sash of Merit as best female cadet.

Career Royal Air Force

She was promoted flying officer on 15 January 1990 and in November 1990 she transferred from the Engineer Branch to the General Duties Branch as aircrew, becoming one of the first female trainee pilots in the RAF. She was promoted flight lieutenant on 15 January 1992. She went to RAF Swinderby for elementary flying training, returned to Cranwell for basic flying training, and taught mathematics at Felsted School until September 2007, when she joined CHC Helicopter as business development manager and Soteria Search and Rescue as transition manager. In April 2011, she joined Essex and Hertfordshire Air Ambulance as an air ambulance pilot. In November 2014, Captain Smith moved to Wiltshire Air Ambulance. She is currently Director Aviation at the Confidential Human Factors Incident Reporting Programme (CHIRP).

Personal life While at RAF Boulmer, she married Flight Lieutenant Peter Cantwell, a Tucano instructor at RAF Cranwell, from Redcar, at St Giles church in Whittington, on 14 August 1993.