“I looked at all sorts of opportunities: the Army, the Mounted Police and others – but I never thought I would become a pilot.”
A very few years on and Juliette was promoted from Pilot Officer to Flying Officer and gained her QFI (Qualified Flying Instructor) status.
She is now one of three female instructors with 208 Squadron and is the second-youngest instructor at the air base.
It’s a world away from the jet fighter stereotypes projected by the 1980s film Top Gun, in which Tom Cruise stars as a military pilot who is given extra-curricular lessons by a female civilian instructor played by the glamorous Kelly McGillis.
McGillis provides a love interest in a film which vaguely touches on the politics of women striving to compete in a man’s world. So, how does Juliette cope with this testosterone-filled environment?
“It’s not a problem really,” she said. The whole atmosphere is good. We have our hard days, but that is part of flying training.
“The group of people we have in the Squadron at the moment are great and we all stick together and help each other out.
“I still, after many, many hours flying, get the same buzz on take-off. I love being in the air as much as I love going cross country on horseback. These are my two favourite things and both get the adrenaline flowing,” she added.
Her passion for all things equine was fired, at the age of eight, by the purchase of a first pony, Tinkerbell.
It was followed by numerous gymkhanas and shows as a member of the Suffolk Hunt branch of the Pony Club, where she would eventually gain her ‘H’ Test and become a Pony Club Instructor.
“I just love teaching,” Juliette tells me as we sit discussing her dual passions in the rather incongruous surroundings of RAF Valley’s Squadron Ops Room.
Only a couple of weeks ago, Juliette represented the RAF at the Royal Tournament at Melton Mowbray: as we talk, her boss, Wing Commander Meadows, pops in to offer his congratulations.
