Portsmouth pilot swaps one runway for another as she’s selected as semi-finalist for Miss England

Former Portsmouth High School student now pilot and aerospace engineer Maleha Khan has taken a step away from the science of space and a giant leap onto the stage of Miss England.

Rising up the ranks, going from a RAF cadet to head of Squadron, Maleha had always had her heart set on the skies. A journey that would eventually take her around the world and into the UK space agency - representing women in a male dominated industry.

After recently being selected as a semi-finalist for Miss England, she hopes to inspire women with a message to say that you can look glamorous and still lead in a male dominated industry.

Maleha Khan - pilot and Miss England semi finalist

Maleha said: “My journey actually started when I decided I wanted to be a pilot. I was 15 years old and I was dedicated to flight as soon as I saw the Red Arrows flying. It was actually in Portsmouth at a D-Day celebration and when I saw that I knew that I just wanted to be that person who could make that many people happy in the crowd but also be doing something at high speed, going upside down, doing something that thrilling.

“When I went to university to study spacecraft engineering as my masters, whilst I was there during that period I joined the Royal Air Force University Air Squadron and then after university I went to work for the National Space Agency and I was really involved in the space side of things which was fantastic seeing it from an infrastructure point of view of how our world uses it.

“That brings me on to my latest adventure in life which is to join the Miss England team and be able to represent what I have struggled to go through with such a minority environment, but also to be able to show people that it is entirely normal to be a feminine woman who dresses up, who enjoys that, but is still a professional, to show people that women can still be that way.

“I think for me, it still goes back to flying. Flying is my one true love, it is still so, so important to me. I'm still training, I'm still building my experiences. I still fly to France, to the Netherlands. But it is mastering that skill, which is what I was so attracted to in the beginning and space for me provides a lot of that too. I hope that one day in my future, I can combine the two in a career. That would be my dream.”