Citywomanflies into historybooks.A LIVERPOOL RAF officer is among the first all-woman helicopter crew ready to fly into the combat zone in Afghanistan. The crew will make military history when they fly one of the six new Merlin choppers into Helmand province. SgtWendy Donald, 31, from Liverpool, will be an air load master on board the helicopter and has been trained to use a heavy machine gun A heavy machine gun refers to either a larger-caliber, high-power machine gun or one of the smaller, medium-caliber (rifle caliber) machine guns meant for prolonged firing from heavy mounts, less mobile, or static positions (or some combination of the two). to fly the dangerous mission. She will join fellow loadmaster Sgt Stephanie Cole, 24, from Wiltshire, Pilot Flt Lt Michelle Goodman DFC DFC - A dataflow language. ["Data Flow Language DFC: Design and Implementation", S. Toshio et al, Systems and Computers in Japan, 20(6):1- 10 (Jun 1989)]. , 32, from Bristol, and her co-pilot Flt Lt Joanna Watkinson, 28, from Reading. They will ferry troops into battle and take wounded soldiers to safety. To prepare for their mission, they have been on pre deployment environmental training at El Centro, California “El Centro” redirects here. For other uses, see El Centro (disambiguation). El Centro is the county seat of Imperial County, California, United States and the largest city in the Imperial Valley, the region east of San Diego. It is also the largest U.S. . This is designed to give helicopter crews, engineers and support staff some experience of working in a "hot and high" environment prior to their deployment to Afghanistan in the helicopter role. CAPTION(S): ELITE CREW: Merlin helicopter Air Load Master SergeantWendy Donald, 31, from Liverpool (far right), with (from left) Merlin helicopter Air Load Master Sergeant Stephanie Cole, Merlin pilot Flight Lieutenant Michelle Goodman DFC, and Merlin pilot Flight Lieutenant JoannaWatkinson |
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