A BRITISH Aerospace flight engineer from Preston made local aviation history when she became the first woman to fly in a fast jet from Warton airfield.

Dawn Rayson, 29, took to the skies in a Hawk 100, reaching speeds of up to 600mph with BAe test pilot Roger Searle.

She acted as observer on the hour-long mission while Roger flew the plane through a range of manoeuvres from rolls and loops to a high mach dive.

Afterwards she said: "It was the experience of a lifetime. It's so hard to explain the feelings and sensations you feel while flying through the sky at a great rate of knots and emerging from manoeuvres."

And she admitted that it's something women don't generally get the chance to do. She said: "Flight testing is very male orientated, there are about 100 people in my office of which only four are women."

But Dawn's used to working with a lot of men, when she was studying electronics at the University of Central Lancashire she was the only female on her course.

She said: "Hopefully it will set a precedent for other women to do it." There are only two other women at BAe who fly fast jets, both are RAF-trained, one is a Tornado pilot while her colleague is a navigator.

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