Nikki Thomas

HENRY McCULLOCH writes:

The Telegraph takes a brief break from wall-to-wall coverage of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, and the terrible risks it poses.  Risks, that is, of vicious European — white European, that is, a qualification one didn’t use to have to make — backlash against the peace-loving, law-abiding Moslems who are bringing their prophetic witness and cultural “vibrancy” to enrich our moribund white-bread societies.  But I digress…

The Telegraph turns its reportorial — actually, propagandistic is the better adjective — talents to a story about another breakthrough for Equality and Progress in the relentless Cultural Revolution busily ruining everything that once was normal: a woman is commanding a Royal Air Force fast-jet squadron for the first time! Pip, Pip…  Remember that The Telegraph is the journalistic flagship of British conservatism, including the Conservative Party.  But what can one expect of a nation that has an Islam-groveller such as David Cameron as its “Conservative” prime minister?

Apparently, the young — and I do mean young: she is a Wing Commander (Lieutenant Colonel-equivalent) at only 36; might her sex have anything to do with her accelerated promotions? — lady in question, one “Nikki” Thomas, recently took command of No. 19 Squadron, RAF, an outfit based in Norfolk that flies Tornado ground-attack aircraft.  The Telegraph gushes, in finest Soviet Life (anyone else remember that fine magazine?) style about how Nikki and her comradette, Juliette “Jules” Fleming, scored another breakthrough for the Amazons in 2009 by flying together as the first all-woman Tornado crew.  Given the vast significance of the post-imperial RAF to the Free World’s defense — sarcasm on — this was an earth-shaking accomplishment.  I know I feel safer with Nikki and Jules patrolling overhead.  …Sarcasm off.

The Telegraph rounds out its fawning portrayal of Nikki and Jules as Super-Women of our new enlightened age with this quote from Nikki’s sister, Janine:

“Nikki was fearless and bright, always wanting to go faster on her bike, breaking the ice off her boat to go sailing in winter and speeding down mountains while I dithered at the top, peering over the edge. She’s a speed freak, she loves to go faster, further — and to win.”

Those sound like pretty good attributes for a fighter pilot, if Nikki were a man — as, in this fighter pilot’s view, one must be to be a real fighter pilot.  But not only is Nikki not a man, she isn’t even a pilot.  The RAF’s first lady fast-jet squadron commander is a navigator, who sits in the back seat (which in a Tornado has no flight controls) and operates systems.

The RAF’s PR photo of the fearless and fearsome Nikki posing in front of the Tornado she rides around in is above.  Pondering this image no doubt has that meanie Putin and all other enemies of the Progressive and the Good quaking in their boots.

Once again, the Hegelian Mambo familiar to readers of the late Lawrence Auster’s View from the Right is at work.  A once-conservative, even traditionalist, institution, in this case the Royal Air Force, has again become a tool of Revolution as society’s controllers waltz us ever Leftward.  Americans watching the zeitgeist ravage the U.S. Armed Forces are all too familiar with the military Hegelian Mambo already.

— Comments —

Thomas F. Bertonneau writes:

The Amazon-ization of the RAF really makes no difference because the RAF, like the Armee de l’Air and the Luftwaffe, ceased to be militarily meaningful decades ago.  The RAF is a token air force, now graced by a token female wing commander.  It will acquit itself courageously, I’m sure, when it confronts a token enemy in the air-superiority contest.  The United States Air Force retains some meaning, but its trajectory is the same as the Swedish Luftvapn: To boast a tiny inventory of extraordinarily expensive “all-purpose” aircraft that are too great an investment actually to be deployed anywhere.  China is the looming adversary.  Its air force deploys thousands of cheap designs first manufactured in the USSR fifty years ago.  In a Western Pacific conflict, American pilots can shoot down Chinese pilots ten to one, and in a week or so there will be no American aircraft left.  Long live Kara Hultgren!

James P. writes:

She looks ridiculous. The narrow shoulders, the ill-fitting suit, the oversize medals (awarded for what?) that remind me of Leonid Brezhnev, the hat that makes her look like she should be handing out parking tickets. Much of it is “not her fault” in the sense that her physique is what it is, and she wears the uniform the military prescribes for her. Still, she chose to put herself where she is, and I have no doubt she would aggressively insist she has every right to be there, no matter what the cost to the RAF and the nation.

Thomas Bertonneau may take some comfort from the fact that China has copied the F-35, and now they have a stupidly expensive, worthless “stealth fighter” just like we do.

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