Angela Swann-Cronin

Trail blazing pilot urges fellow wahine Maori to shine in non-traditional fields

Words Jill Nicholas

Pictures/video Stephen Parker

Angela Swann-Cronin – wife, mother of teenage sons, environmentalist, ecologist,  self sustainability advocate, painter, cultural advisor, pilot.

To this line up add that she’s a woman on a mission. Missions are something she’s no stranger to, a career flying in the military means her log book’s crammed with them.

But her latest mission’s at ground level. It’s aim is to encourage more wahine Maori to step away from their well-trodden employment pathways and set their aspirational compass towards professions which embrace science, engineering, technology and maths (STEM).

“I want wahine Maori women to realise they can do anything they set their minds to, I strongly believe this is possible. I didn’t come from a privileged background, it is about working hard and achieving your goals.”

Angela’s mantra is ‘if at first you don’t succeed try, try and try again’, or put another way don’t ever give up on your dream.  

If anyone exemplifies those words of wisdom it’s Angela Swann-Cronin. A confident te reo Maori speaker she’s an inspirational role model, one with first-hand knowledge that the road to success can be paved with pitfalls.

It took her three attempts to crack entry into the RNZAF. Each knockback made her all the more hell bent on turning her ambition into reality.   

And by golly she got there, becoming the first Maori woman in our military services   to gain her wings.

They’ve secured her a working life that’s taken her from the Antarctica to the Arctic Circle “and a lot of other places in between.” Thoughtfully, she keeps a globe handy to demonstrate to the geographically challenged the whereabouts of the lesser known spots she’s touched down in. It’s comforting to know in her pre air force days Angela hadn’t heard of them either. 

Just what was it that attracted her to aim for the stars?

Rejection strengthens will to succeed 

She was 14 and at Girls’ High when she saw a RNZAF recruitment ad on TV.

“It looked exciting and I thought ‘this is what I want to do’. It was unusual, but it was my dream. It meant I had to change my subjects in the fourth form to include science, physics and maths.

“A lot of people doubted I could achieve that dream including the principal. My parents were very supportive but had no idea by becoming a military pilot what I was getting myself into.” 

In her last school year she spent a week on an officers’ selection course, making it to what’s known as the president’s interview. It’s something only two per cent of applicants achieve. 

“I went home and confidently waited for the acceptance letter only to be told I’d missed out. It was a crushing blow.”

Working in other fields

Gutted her dream was in tatters, she turned her after-school job as a Rainbow Springs tour guide and grounds keeper into full time employment.

A spell as a white water rafting guide on local rivers followed.

“I’d been on a trip at high school and thought ‘how cool these people get paid to do this’.”

At 18 she reapplied for the air force. “I thought everything was perfect this time but was rejected again. After that I lost my way for a while, chose to rebel, did a lot of surfing. I don’t regret wasting that time, that’s why I tell young people ‘make sure you have some fun in your young years’. I am actually pleased that [rejection] happened to me.”

With double rejection out of her system she enrolled in an engineering degree at Auckland University but it wasn’t for her.

She came home and became a lab technician with the Pulp and Paper Research Organisation. She enjoyed it but the skies still called.

“I saved money to pay for eight hours helicopter training.” 

She’d have continued but the air force decreed the time was right to add Angela Swann-Cronin, then 22, to its fixed wing pilot line up. She trained at Ohakea and Whenuapai, gaining the wings she’d waited so long for.

Flying unfriendly skies

As a trail blazing wahine Maori her career has been dogged by media attention and she detests it.  

She’s particularly uncomfortable that much has been made of her accomplishing flying missions into and out of Afghanistan at the height of the Taliban conflict. 

She barely tolerates us rehashing it but she allows us to in the hope it will emphasise the value of that STEM urging of hers to wahine choosing career options.

She deliberately downplays her operational time in this red hot war zone as a member of a transport squadron flying C-130 Hercules. For the record these are the big fellas capable of take offs and landings on rough-as-guts runways and are “heavy as” to handle.  

She insists there was nothing special about her being at the controls. It was something that went with the territory of being a pilot of any gender, a role she was trained for on an equal footing with men. That gender stereotyping continues appals her.

Rather than talking about tangling with the Taliban she prefers to reflect on the social side of her time in the region, taking us over the Afghanistan- Kyrgyzstan border to the tented camp city she lived in at the capital, Bishkeh.  

“It was a coalition of many nationalities, we got on famously with them, the Italians in particular. What I have learnt from my military deployments is that Kiwis are appreciated internationally, even if our equipment isn’t on a level with the Americans.

“In Bishkeh we hosted other countries’ forces to a hangi night, digging a pit in the rock hard soil. We put on a kapa haka performance for them.”

“They [other nationalities] were sad when we left and we were equally sad to go. We made some good friends there.” 

Before we exit this theatre of conflict there’s a question that must be asked of any serviceman or woman who’ve completed tours of duty there. Wasn’t it frightening flying such unfriendly skies?

Angela’s adamant the answer is absolutely not, she reiterates that’s what military personnel train for.

“You have an amazing team, you trust each other with your life. Flying into those places you are wearing heavy body armour, I had a pistol at my side. We were told where surface-to-air missile sites were, you are taught how to evade being shot down in enemy territory and how to escape [if you are].”

Waving to Russian forces

From the deserts of the Middle East Angela was seconded to their polar opposite, flying missions over the mountains and tundra of Northern Canada while based in Winnipeg for three years. Although seconded to the Royal Canadian Air Force she remained on the RNZAF pay roll.

Canada is where the Arctic Circle featured in her global journeying. 

She’s flown into Greenland (which lies within it), and was with a tactical squadron honing the intricacies of air-to-air refuelling as Russian forces were training across the Canadian-Arctic border. 

“We’d give them a friendly wave . . . that introduced me to the world of international politics and the way it is today with Russia [that country’s recent invasion of Ukraine]. 

Obviously uncomfortable, Angela signals that’s quite enough talk about her thirteen military years, her life’s moved on and it’s time we did too which turns us to the more personal side of her life.  

Art, marriage, motherhood  

 In 1998 she met her future husband, fellow RNZAF officer Anton Cronin, who at the time was serving as a navigator on P3 Orions. They had rooms next to each other on the Whenuapai base.

“The first time we  spoke I apologised to him for washing out my paint brushes which  tends to make a bit of noise, at two in the morning.”

The fact she was washing paint brushes at such an ungodly hour is unsurprising, Angela’s a talented artist.

“I’ve been painting all my life, art was the first way I could really express myself.  As a child I was very shy, I had lots of ear infections so communication was a problem. The art I do now is for my own wellbeing.” 

She and Anton married five years after meeting, they have two sons. The elder, Nikau, 17, was born in Canada where they’d been deployed as a married couple. Tai, 15, arrived after the Swann-Cronins returned to Whenuapai. “He’s a Westie.”

There’s a story attached to Nikau’s name, it’s one that underscores his mother’s passion for ecology and the environment.

“During my training I had to cut down a giant nikau, naming our son Nikau was my way of giving back. Papatuanuku [earth mother] is at the core of everything for me; our home, food, garden, the things we produce . . . My Maori heritage is my superpower.”   

The family settled in Rotorua in 2010, via Christchurch, where Anton became a civilian air traffic controller. Angela left the air force carrying the rank of Flight Lieutenant.

“I loved that time [away from flying] being a full time mum.”

Rotorua was the obvious place for Angela to study te reo Maori. She’s completed several courses including a year’s total immersion and has a Te Ara Reo Maori diploma, gained after completing three years study on Te Wananga o Aotearoa’s  local campus.

“It’s one of the best things I have done, spiritually and academically.”    

While studying she flew float planes for Volcanic Air Safaris.

Back in the pilot’s seat

 “Then I thought I had better get serious about flying again. In 2015 she joined Air New Zealand, initially flying with its subsidiary Eagle Air.

“That was when we started building our whare here [Tikitere].

 When we moved in I’d see the aircraft flying over the house and realise it was time to go to work.”   

Angela remains with Air NZ, flying its domestic routes out of Tauranga. Anton’s often in the control tower for her take offs and landings. 

“I love flying around Aotearoa, the views we have and how the people are so loyal to their own communities.” 

But back to that unique whare of theirs.  Built of barley straw, it’s a stunning eco-friendly piece of architecture, Angela designed it. 

“It’s my sanctuary, I go to bed with a perpetual smile on my face.”

It is her hope that’s what wahine who come after her will do too.

“I want them to be happy in their job, not focusing on the monetary side or being rich and famous. Social media influences can be admirable but they need to still work hard and have a vocation that brings tangible results.”