Mary Cameron-Kelly

Born in North Sydney, Nova Scotia in 1962, Mary Cameron’s inspiration to fly began with NASA’s Apollo program. She joined the 562 Branch of the Air Cadets and dreamed of becoming a military pilot or astronaut. After graduating high school in 1981, she immediately enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces.

The Air Force had only just started to permit women to fly, and between 1979 and 1985 it ran four Service Women in Non-Traditional Employment Roles (SWINTER) trials. Mary applied but was initially unsuccessful. Undeterred, she opted instead to train as an airframe technician and was assigned to 14 Wing, Canadian Forces Base Greenwood, in Nova Scotia, where she worked mainly on the Aurora – a position that only increased her desire to fly with the military. She re-applied twice more for the SWINTER trials, again unsuccessfully.

If the military would not allow her to train as a pilot, Mary instead decided to do so herself. In 1982, she started taking private flying lessons in her spare time. She quickly earned her private pilot’s license and in 1985 entered the Webster Memorial Trophy Competition for best amateur pilot in Canada, placing runner up! It was during this period that Mary met her future husband, Jim Kelly, also a member of the Forces. The pair married in 1986 and together they built a life, sharing “the responsibility of juggling the needs of two children, Cameron and Amanda, with two military careers.” Mary maintains that sharing was a key part of their success: “If it wasn’t for the support of my service spouse, it would have been a difficult time. We shared, and I was able to manage being a wife and mother while also have an exciting career in military aviation.”

As a skilled airframe technician, Mary was solicited to become an airframe instructor. She served with 404 Maritime Patrol and Training Squadron from mid-July 1986 until the end of 1988. The ongoing SWINTER trials had demonstrated to the military that there was no reason to deny women becoming military pilots. With the door now fully open to women, Mary applied once again to become a RCAF pilot. Her dogged perseverance paid off this time – she was accepted.

She completed her basic flight training in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba flying the CT-134 Musketeer, and then headed to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan for advanced flying training on the CT-114 Tutor. In 1992, with her uniform now sporting a new set of military pilot wings, Mary went on to become the first female Aurora pilot in the Canadian Air Force – one of many career firsts. She was drawn to the aircraft type because of its diverse missions and role and also because she knew the plane’s mechanics literally inside out having been a technician on it for years. Plus, she later recalled another perk about flying the Aurora out of Greenwood – “being from Cape Breton, I appreciated that I going to be based so close to home.”

Her first individual takeoff of an Aurora was truly memorable. “It was on a cold winter day. Feeling the power, rush, and excitement that I had been waiting for a long time to experience was so very very rewarding”, she remembers. “I had persevered for many years to achieve this goal – something no woman in Canada had had the opportunity to do before me – to fly the CP-140 Aurora aircraft. I felt proud of my achievement. ” After advancing from First Officer to Aircraft Captain in 1994, Mary then progressed to become the first ever female Maritime Patrol Crew Commander in 1995. She also then became the first female pilot instructor on the Aurora starting in 1996.

From the early nineties through mid-1996 she served with 405 Maritime Patrol Squadron. A stint at 404 Squadron soon followed, after which she returned to 405 Squadron. In 2003, she deployed as part of Canada’s contribution to Operation Apollo, part of the international campaign against terrorism, serving overseas in the Middle East. When the mission was completed, Mary flew the last Aurora home to Canada. She returned to Greenwood and was once again posted to 404 Squadron until being selected in 2009 for posting to the United Kingdom to fly the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR2. This represented another first – the first female Aurora exchange pilot. Unfortunately, soon after arrival the UK stopped training on the Nimrod, making Mary also the last Canadian pilot to fly one.

Mary came back to Canada in 2010 and has continued to serve with both 404 and 405 squadrons in various roles. As a senior flight instructor with her unique military technician background, she can teach on almost any ground school topic, her favourite being engines, propellers, and electrical systems. She has personally been the instructor (in air and on simulator) for over 160 student pilots, a surprisingly high number given the system’s average output of eight students per year.

It is always a uniquely rewarding experience for Mary to have a former student successfully return as a new instructor and to experience the challenges faced on the teaching side or to have them go on to become a successful General or even Assistant to the Vice Chief of Defence Staff, as did Major-General Iain Huddleston.

With literally her entire life spent in aviation, it is perhaps unsurprising that Mary has worked to share her love of flying with others. She has been a mentor to many, both in and out of uniform. In addition to being an early member of the Canadian Women in Aviation Conference, which supports career aviation networking, she is an active member of the Canadian Ninety-Nines, and remains committed to the Air Cadet League of Canada, an organization she has supported throughout her career, including volunteering as an instructor. Mary also volunteers with the Girl Guides and at school career days, where she has been a lifelong proponent of a career in the RCAF.

Remarkable as it may seem, Mary is able to find some “spare time”, which generally sees her playing team sports whenever she can. She has participated at regional and national levels in not one but two sports – golf and ice hockey. It should come as no surprise that her achievements include being named as a past 14 Wing female athlete of the year.

Mary’s contributions have been recognized both professionally and outside of the military. She received the Progress Women of Excellence Award in 2007 by the Annapolis Valley Chamber of Commerce in the management of professions category, was honoured on a Canadian Ninety-Nines with a stamp, and was interviewed by Joyce Spring for the book “High Flyers” on female military pilots in 2018. Mary was named one of the Top 20 Women in Defence by Esprit de Corps Magazine in 2019, and she also received the Elsie MacGill Award from the Northern Lights that same year in the category of Pioneer. To mark her impressive career with the Air Force, Mary is also the subject of one of the Greenwood Museum’s aviation paintings commemorating Operation Apollo.

Looking back at her career, she realizes she is closer to her last military flight than she may like, but there is little about her time in service that Mary would change. She has now flown more hours on the Aurora than any other Canadian pilot. Many of these were as a pilot and Crew Commander. Her list of countless missions include search and rescue flights, anti-submarine patrols, fisheries support patrols, and drug interdiction cases (including as part of Operation CARRIBE, flown in partnership with the U.S. Coast Guard). She has flown from coast to coast to coast in Canada, from Florida to Hawaii in the US, and all throughout Europe (including France, Spain, Iceland, Italy, Norway and the United Kingdom).

Looking back, Mary realizes that she truly believes that “if one door closes, another opens”. It may not always be obvious at the time, but with persistence you will find that open door.” Despite her many life successes, Mary humbly maintains that her dreams would not have been possible without “a lot of support from her many colleagues and Commanding Officers over my career”.

As a trailblazer in the Royal Canadian Air Force, Mary Cameron- Kelly has been a pioneering female aviator who has spent more than four decades in uniform. She presently has over 9,000 flying hours, of which 8,800 are military hours, with 8,500 of these flown on the Aurora aircraft. She hopes that her career in aviation can inspire the next generation, but especially young women who may not yet have been introduced to aviation as a potential career choice. She would love to be an example that with a little bit of hard work and perseverance, you can do and have it all – record setting pilot, senior military officer and wife, mother, and friend.

Mary marvels at how a life spent in military aviation has helped her fulfil so many of her childhood dreams. Maybe that is why she remains a true ambassador for Canadian aviation, one who, with commercial space travel opening up, might still yet reach the stars.