Angela Swann-Cronin from Rotorua became the first wāhine Māori pilot in the Royal New Zealand Air Force in 1997. From Antarctica to Afghanistan – she’s been deployed all over the world. She retired from the Air Force in 2009 and now flies the Q300 around Aotearoa as an Air New Zealand pilot, encourages the next generation of female pilots and advocates for positive change in male-dominated industries.
IMAGES: ALEX SPODYNEIKO
HAIR AND MAKEUP: LAURA LEMOS
On a picturesque quiet street, with Lake Rotorua gleefully shimmering on one side and Hell’s Gate steaming and boiling on the other, sits a very special house. It’s a sustainable straw bale house that took Angela and her husband, Anton, eleven months to build. With natural colours and materials, graceful arches where you’d expect straight lines and massive exposed beams, it’s cosy and welcoming. It’s a true nest for a couple, their two teen kids and a dog named Mihi.
The first thing you notice when walking inside is a giant drum set in the middle of the room. “I also enjoy play the guitar,” mentions Angela casually.
The next room contains an easel with an almost finished painting of a horse that looks so real you wouldn’t be surprised to see it stepping out of the frame for a quick graze in Angela’s landscaped garden. “I was a very quiet young girl and that was how I expressed myself – through art and colour,” says Angela. “I used to sell my artworks but these days I just paint for my own wellbeing.”
She’s no doubt a woman of many talents but if there is one passion that exceeds all others, it’s her love for flying. Both Angela and Anton currently commute from Rotorua to Tauranga Airport for work. Anton is an air traffic controller, while Angela pilots domestic flights. On the day we meet, she’s getting ready to fly from Tauranga to Wellington then from Wellington to Invercargill, with a return flight via Blenheim the next day. Exciting as it might sound, for Angela it’s a daily routine. In fact, she’s more excited about the possibility of seeing the blood supermoon from her cockpit – a rare astronomical event that happened over New Zealand in May for the first time in 40 years.
Despite their work being in Tauranga, the Swann- Cronins have no intentions to move. Their relatives are spread throughout the BOP and Waikato – Mount Maunganui, Ōhope Beach, Cambridge – so being centrally located is pretty convenient. The family has always been the most important thing for them. Angela, who is of Ngāti Porou and Rongowhakaata descent, says: “My wider whānau is on the East Coast but I grew up in Rotorua and I feel like an adopted daughter of the community here.” She always knew that one day she would return to settle down in this town.
After the hectic globetrotting military days, Angela really values her newfound slower, more mindful pace of life. “I do yoga, gardening, take my dog for a jog. I always have so much going on in my life, it feels really nice when I have a day off to have a leisurely start, and make sure I take care of myself so I can better care for others.”
BECOMING A PILOT
It all started with a TV ad for the Air Force when Angela was only 14. “I just fell in love with all the adventures and challenges it promised.”
She failed the first two attempts to get into the Air Force straight out of school but didn’t give up and was accepted on her third try. “Never let your dreams go! I would never have been able to afford a flight school, and flying was something I really wanted to do, so the military became a different avenue to my goal. It’s only one of many pathways to flying in New Zealand but it’s certainly the most competitive. You need to be really tough skinned to succeed. I wasn’t initially but I developed it.”
Training and flying uncovered another – this time, physical – obstacle for Angela. “I had a lot of ear infections as a child, so now I have severe scarring in my ear. For a long time, I thought it was normal to experience pain with the altitude change!” She later had surgery done and though the situation has improved, Angela still has to manage and monitor her condition.
For many, this might’ve been too much, but Angela barely even mentions the negatives. Instead, her eyes sparkle and lips curl in a fond smile as she reminisces about her years in the military: “Those were incredible times, doing amazing things with amazing people all around the world. There is so much to this job – Weapons and Nuclear Biological Chemical Warfare training, practising defensive aircraft maneuvers, researching tactical airfields, arranging diplomatic clearances, flight planning through foreign airspace and working with coalition forces. I just loved that sense of teamwork and excitement, which sounds a bitbizarre when you’re operating in a war zone, but I was never afraid. We were close as a team and had equipment and personnel available to protect us and the aircraft. Prior to deployment we trained, and trained, and trained.”
Angela flew her C-130 Hercules to Antarctica, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and all over the globe with a small team that included a co-pilot, flight engineer, navigator and loadmaster. She had also been deployed to Canada for three years, where she had her first child.
Women breaking barriers in aviation
PAVING THE WAY FOR WOMEN IN AVIATION
What was it like being the only wāhine Māori pilot in the Royal New Zealand Air Force? “I had no idea I was going to be the first, but initially I was yelled at a lot,” she admits. “I’ve heard military training has changed quite a bit since I was there. And back then, coming from a family with two sisters, graduating from an all-girl school, and suddenly finding myself surrounded by men – it was a cultural shock.”
Angela faced at times what she calls ‘subtle discrimination’ – things like being unintentionally excluded from conversations or activities such as ‘boys trips’. “In male-dominated industries, men may not even realise they’re doing it, but it can hurt. I think it can be one of the reasons women are not attracted to these jobs – we all want to feel like we ‘belong’.”
At first, Angela tried to blend in with her co-workers. “It’s a normal survival tactic. Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of fun too! But it wasn’t all roses. There were moments of loneliness, moments of personal and professional sadness. These difficult times have led to my involvement in the industry’s mental wellness programs”.
Later on, she realised that the best she could do to improve the situation for the future generation of female pilots was to make herself available as a role model.
“I now go into schools, into communities, so people can see that a pilot is not just a white male that society is so accustomed to. They can also be a Māori wāhine! They can look just like you. If you can see it – you can be it.”
She also works with several worldwide groups uniting women in aviation, including an Air New Zealand network WINGs (Women Inspiring the Next Generation) to attract and retain more women in aviation and to identify and eliminate the barriers they’re facing. “Take the language we use in our manuals, for example. A lot of it has always been ‘he’. It wasn’t a barrier for me but it can be for others. We can do better! Let’s try and make aviation more inclusive. Not just for women but for other minorities as well.”
Another barrier Angela points out is having kids. “When you have children, you stop flying during some parts of the pregnancy and post natal, therefore you stop accumulating flight hours. In most aviation jobs, your flight hours are the indication of your experience, so women who choose to have children during their aviation career would always be behind their male peers. We can make the same money but our male peers would accumulate more hours and, as a result, moveahead in their careers more quickly.”
Angela had children during her military days and was put into a ground job while she wasn’t flying – something that’s not easily done in most civil aviation jobs. “In civil aviation, if you’re a pilot and you’re not able to fly, typically there is no other job for you, which, of course, is a huge financial barrier for women.”
These days, you can often find Angela and other WINGs members at various air shows or aviation forums. They are always open for a chat.
She also mentors young women willing to follow in her footsteps. “A lady who I helped mentor over the years is now in training to become a pilot. It’s great to see her developing. She has the same excitement in her eyes I had 20 years ago.”
“We need women at all levels,” says Angela. “We have to sit at the table when the big decisions are made, otherwise those decisions might not be favourable for us.” To be able to share her perspective as a Māori woman on a whole new level, last year Angela started her governance journey. She’s now a Director for SRSL (Search and Rescue Services Ltd) which operates predominantly rescue helicopter services south of the Bombay Hills to Wellington. She’s really excited about this new chapter of her life and hopes it will give her an opportunity to make a difference, while also spending more time at home, with her family.
To summarise her journey Angela shares a whānau whakataukī (proverb) that she lives by – Whakapupungia nga moemoea, kia tipu ai hei Taonga – Nurture your dreams so they may flourish as prized possessions.