An interview with Katrina Sudell…‘lady engineer’ with BAC in the 1970s (abridged)

Katrina talks about her university education and early employment before describing how she got into aeronautical engineering. Katrina provides a fascinating insight into what it was like to work as an engineer in the 1970s whilst working in the Spares Department of the British Aircraft Corporation in Preston working on the MRCA (Multi-Role Combat Aircraft) which became the Panavia Tornado. Katrina was able to put to advantage her language and communication skills whilst employed on the spare parts catalogue. Katrina reflects on being involved in aviation and a woman working in engineering, and tells some fun stories from her life and work such as hammering her car at some traffic lights in front of Germans to get it working it again before the lights changed, discussing aircraft parts with German colleagues and persuading them not to label a hole with a part number and the instance of an engineer storming out of a work canteen for engineers saying the canteen was not for ladies who come with friends…she never saw him again. Katrina feels she did not face problems with being a lady engineer because colleagues valued her skills and she was too busy working and living to feel really proud of her work and excited about being involved in aviation. Katrina also talks about stopping work to look after her family, becoming a teacher and helping and caring for her mother and father. Most recently, Katrina has enjoyed volunteering for the National Aerospace Library (NAL) by helping to conserve historic material in the NAL’s archives. Her advice for anyone starting out in their career is to research their interests (read a lot but be careful what you read, especially statistics), don’t be put off doing something that is unusual for you to do, and take advice but follow your dream! This is an abridged version of an interview with Katrina Sudell by Anne Hayward as part of the Royal Aeronautical Society/National Aerospace Library’s oral history project ‘If I only didn’t do it that way…….” Capturing history from the horse’s mouth to inspire today’s aeronautical professionals. The recording was edited by edited by Eur Ing Mike Stanberry FRAeS. The transcript of the recording can be accessed on the National Aerospace Library's catalogue along with links to the full recording: https://raes.soutron.net/Portal/Default/en-GB/RecordView/Index/183269