British Woman Operates Own Charter Air Service (1954)
Oct 3, 2022 23:21:43 GMT 12
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 3, 2022 23:21:43 GMT 12
British Woman Operates Own Charter Air Service
NEWS FOR WOMEN
Every week-end a smartly dressed brunette takes off from London Airport in one of her own fleet of de Havilland Rapides. She is Mrs Monique Rendall, who has carried more than 30,000 people on “joy” flights over London since she began her own pleasure flight service in 1949, just after her marriage to Ray Rendail, a first officer with British European Airways.
The mother of two young children, mistress of a beautiful home in Buckinghamshire where she does her own housekeeping with only part-time help, and all her cooking with the skill of an expert—she is half French—Mrs Rendall has the knack of combining a variety of careers with no trouble at all. In fact, she seems to thrive on it.
Thirty-four-year-old Mrs Rendall is managing-director and chief pilot of Island Air Services (London). Her husband and she inaugurated the pleasure-trip service just after their marriage, then they began piloting day trips to Le Touquet for £3 17s 6d return.
Today the firm owns three planes, employs four pilots and a secretary. Their planes are available for private charter to anywhere in the British Isles and occasionally make flights to the Continent. Mrs Kendall holds the concession to run pleasure flights from London Airport.
Naturally she gets some interesting assignments. Once Michael Wilding and his wife Elizabeth Taylor chartered one of her planes to fly over London and view their new flat from the air.
One of her first jobs was to take 3½-year-old Howard Collis and his two-year-old brother Nigel, of North Finchley, on an hour’s cruise 10,000 feet over Southern England, in the hope of curing their whooping cough.
Then there were two foreign men who bought their tickets and took off on one of her pleasure flights. They turned out to be former Luftwaffe pilots who wanted to see the war damage on London. “You can imagine what I felt like when they excitedly pointed out the damaged areas to one another,’’ says Mrs Rendall.
Oddly enough, her most regular customers are blind or old people, who seem to find a deep satisfaction in flying, and enjoy her commentary 1000 feet above London. One woman of 92, who had been bedridden for seven years and wanted to fly before she died, was a recent passenger.
Famous in flying circles as Monique Agazarian before she married, this woman of apparently inexhaustible energy flew anything from Spitfires to four-engined bombers to Royal Air Force stations during the war. When war broke out in 1939 she was studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She became a V.A.D. Then she took to flying. Eventually she flew planes representative of 23 different types.
In 1945 she was 24, and had to earn her living. All she could do was fly. So she studied further to get her B licence for commercial flying. She got a job flying charter planes to the Continent for Island Air Services which at that time had headquarters in the Scilly Isles. And in 1948 at the London School of Aviation, where she was studying for her navigator’s certificate, she met Ray Rendall. Soon after she married him.
It is quite usual to see Monique Rendall taking off on a joy flight with baby Mary in a cradle beside her, with little Annette and the family bulldog, Spike, along to keep the passengers company. The children are just as much at home in the cockpit as their flying mother.
THE PRESS, 19 JUNE 1954
NEWS FOR WOMEN
Every week-end a smartly dressed brunette takes off from London Airport in one of her own fleet of de Havilland Rapides. She is Mrs Monique Rendall, who has carried more than 30,000 people on “joy” flights over London since she began her own pleasure flight service in 1949, just after her marriage to Ray Rendail, a first officer with British European Airways.
The mother of two young children, mistress of a beautiful home in Buckinghamshire where she does her own housekeeping with only part-time help, and all her cooking with the skill of an expert—she is half French—Mrs Rendall has the knack of combining a variety of careers with no trouble at all. In fact, she seems to thrive on it.
Thirty-four-year-old Mrs Rendall is managing-director and chief pilot of Island Air Services (London). Her husband and she inaugurated the pleasure-trip service just after their marriage, then they began piloting day trips to Le Touquet for £3 17s 6d return.
Today the firm owns three planes, employs four pilots and a secretary. Their planes are available for private charter to anywhere in the British Isles and occasionally make flights to the Continent. Mrs Kendall holds the concession to run pleasure flights from London Airport.
Naturally she gets some interesting assignments. Once Michael Wilding and his wife Elizabeth Taylor chartered one of her planes to fly over London and view their new flat from the air.
One of her first jobs was to take 3½-year-old Howard Collis and his two-year-old brother Nigel, of North Finchley, on an hour’s cruise 10,000 feet over Southern England, in the hope of curing their whooping cough.
Then there were two foreign men who bought their tickets and took off on one of her pleasure flights. They turned out to be former Luftwaffe pilots who wanted to see the war damage on London. “You can imagine what I felt like when they excitedly pointed out the damaged areas to one another,’’ says Mrs Rendall.
Oddly enough, her most regular customers are blind or old people, who seem to find a deep satisfaction in flying, and enjoy her commentary 1000 feet above London. One woman of 92, who had been bedridden for seven years and wanted to fly before she died, was a recent passenger.
Famous in flying circles as Monique Agazarian before she married, this woman of apparently inexhaustible energy flew anything from Spitfires to four-engined bombers to Royal Air Force stations during the war. When war broke out in 1939 she was studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She became a V.A.D. Then she took to flying. Eventually she flew planes representative of 23 different types.
In 1945 she was 24, and had to earn her living. All she could do was fly. So she studied further to get her B licence for commercial flying. She got a job flying charter planes to the Continent for Island Air Services which at that time had headquarters in the Scilly Isles. And in 1948 at the London School of Aviation, where she was studying for her navigator’s certificate, she met Ray Rendall. Soon after she married him.
It is quite usual to see Monique Rendall taking off on a joy flight with baby Mary in a cradle beside her, with little Annette and the family bulldog, Spike, along to keep the passengers company. The children are just as much at home in the cockpit as their flying mother.
THE PRESS, 19 JUNE 1954
