The original manuscript was written in just three weeks as part of McConaghy’s recovery process from PTSD and is a rapid read at 160 pages.

When asked what she missed most about the military, McConaghy placed an emphasis on “the people, the banter, the chats” but also said she misses “the smell of the aircraft”. McConaghy said that the most frequently asked, and least favorite, question over the years has been the challenges she has faced as a female crewman. And he said ‘well, actually, it’s a wire, and the job is in helicopter recruitment’ and I was like I want to do that job. During her career, Liz undertook two deployments to Iraq and ten deployments to Helmand, Afghanistan, in support of Operation Herrick, which gave her an insightful and very personal perspective on war. If you think you are owed some sort of prize for being capable of doing things as a woman, you’re almost saying you are incapable in the first place.

McConaghy has even been invited to RAF Benson, South Oxfordshire, England, and RAF Odiham, in Hampshire, England, to host talks about mental health. But I internalised that pressure; I didn’t wanna be that Liz, crying in the back of the tent or the last one at the fitness test. When asked what her advice would be to a young aspiring pilot, perhaps one who thought ‘there’s no way I can do what Liz does,’ she said : “forget stigma, be brave, be bold and really trust in yourself and be really proud of what you do.

Liz said “the first thing I really remember in Iraq was the temperature and being a girl from Northern Ireland, I wasn’t used to 45-degree heat, and it just hit you like a brick wall when you got off the aircraft.By the time that finished,”Liz explained, “my neck had started to play up, and had been playing up for years because [I was] wearing a helmet and mpg goggles. It had aircrew cadet written on the edge of it and there’s only me and one other person who got that because we were still not substantive sergeants. McConaghy watched her crewmate plunge towards the open central hatch, saved only by a safety harness around his waist attached to the airframe.