Guyana’s first female commercial helicopter pilot, Ms Barbara Adams paid a short visit to Base Camp Ayanganna recently.
She was received by Adjutant General, Colonel Lorraine Foster and a team from Defence Headquarters.
Ms Adams is currently in Guyana for the Ex-GDF Officers’ 2023 reunion.
The former Bishops High School graduate was a student at the University of Guyana when she was selected to attend the Oxford Air Training School in England. She successfully completed the program and graduated with a Commercial Pilots license in helicopters in 1977. She became the first female helicopter pilot in the United Kingdom and also holds the distinction of being the first, and only, female helicopter pilot in Guyana. After her graduation she enlisted with the Guyana Defence Force as an Ensign officer assigned to the GDF Air Corps. She flew the Bell 206 and Bell 212 helicopters on many missions with the then President of Guyana, Linden FS Burnham, and several other rescue missions for the GDF.
She later migrated to the US.
Ms Adams received several professional awards throughout her career including the Pioneer Aviator Award from Prime Minister Samuel Hinds in October 2013, Trail Blazer Award from the Guyana Unity Movement in June 2018, and the 2019 Excellence Award from the Guyana Association of Georgia.
She occasionally renews her love for flying via her family’s flying Club in her adopted home state of Georgia. Ms. Adams Wilson is the mother of three loving children.
