Thirty-Seven Years in the Sky: Celebrating Helena Hughes
At Pooleys, we are lucky to work with some truly remarkable people. This week, we want to take a moment to celebrate one of them.
Helena Hughes has been a part of the Pooleys family for many years, as the author of the Pooleys Radiotelephony Communications Manual, a contributor to the Air Pilot's Manual series, and a familiar name to generations of student pilots who have learned radio telephony with her books in hand. She has also written and performed several aviation audio CDs, bringing her teaching to life beyond the printed page. But Helena's connection to aviation goes far deeper than the written word.
Born into an aviation household, Helena had her first informal flying lesson at the age of four. Her late father David was a flying instructor and flew corporate jets. After university she obtained her PPL and went on to begin a career in Air Traffic Control at London Luton Airport, earning her Controllers Licence in 1990. For the 37 years that followed, she worked as an operational Air Traffic Control Officer at London Terminal Control in Swanwick, working Thames Radar, Luton Radar and Heathrow Special, while also qualifying as a flying instructor in 1996 and holding a CPL/IR and a PPL(H). She is an FRTOL Examiner, an ROCC Assessor, a Unit Competency Assessor and a member of the Senior FRTOL Examiner Panel.
After 37 years, Helena is coming to the end of her ATC career, with just a few shifts left before she hangs up her headset for the final time.
To mark the occasion, Pooleys Ambassador George helped support a very special flight under the callsign Helena37, buzzing the tower at every airport Helena has worked at or alongside during her career: Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton, Stansted, London City and Biggin Hill. Helena did the flying. It is exactly the kind of tribute that only aviation can produce.
Fellow Ambassador Ian, who works alongside Helena at EFT, put it well: "We are very lucky to have her."
Away from aviation, Helena completed a degree in astronomy in 2020 and describes herself as an intermittently enthusiastic gardener. It seems fitting that someone who has spent a career working in the skies above Britain also spends her spare time looking up at them.
Congratulations, Helena, on an extraordinary career. Enjoy your retirement!
