Michelle Huntington

I love it.

I call myself that, but now I'm me, the actual MacGyver.

Absolutely.

What is it?

Chewing gum, belly button, lint?

Yeah, it's a paper plate.

So I was, my father was in the Royal Australian Air Force and we traveled around as kids with him overseas.

And back in the seventies, giving away my age, the mid seventies, I was able to go up in a Mirage fighter jet, which these days with OH&S, et cetera, it would not be allowed as a, you

I was able to go up in that and I fell in love with just that thrill of flight and the G-forces and also these pilots were revered as demigods and they didn't appear to be doing anything special because when I was, you know, when you're a child, you look at things without full understanding, but see them press the same buttons in sequence and think, yep, I can do that.

And so my parents never said we, my sister and I couldn't do anything.

It's like, well, if you can find a way, we support you.

You know, we weren't a rich family.

They didn't pay for everything.

We had to work it out ourselves.

So growing up, I had this belief I was going to be a pilot.

When I moved back to Australia and finished my schooling, year 10, which is, I'm not sure what that's equivalent to in your schooling system, but it was before we did our final two years of school before university, and we had to choose subjects.

And my career advisor, I was at a girls' school, she told me that women couldn't be pilots.

And I was a pretty compliant young girl, you know, I was brought up in the era of, you know, seen and not heard sort of thing and smile and say yes to everything.

And I did ask her why I couldn't be and she told me, and this is going to sound like

I was silly for not, like, for believing her.