Few husband-and-wife teams get to work together in their chosen profession. KATE THOMPSON discovered a local couple who have made it to the top together...

HAMPSHIRE couple Ian and Cath White are the ultimate high-fliers. The husband and wife pair are both captains for British Airways

operating out of Southampton International Airport - and they have been known to take to the skies together behind the controls of a jet travelling to Scotland.

"We decide who is going to be first officer and who will be captain on the flight out - and then we change round the next time.

"When we do fly together, it's nice because we know we will both be home so we can have

dinner together," said Cath, 48.

At work at least, Cath is the boss and as Base Captain she looks after the 130 cabin crew, pilots and engineers that British Airways have based at Eastleigh.

"I married Ian in 1994 and we moved down here. Then I became Base Captain and changed from flying a 17-seater aircraft to an Embraer 145 jet with 49 seats on routes from Southampton to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

"My licence would allow me to fly Concorde or a 747 but I am a bit of an old fogey and I am happy to go home at the end of each day.

"Long-haul would bore me to death," said Cath, who lives with husband Ian, 56, at Park Gate.

The couple undertook their most adventurous flight when they brought a light aircraft back from America.

"We flew to New York and then Chicago to pick up the plane. Then we flew up through Canada, crossed Greenland and then down to Reykjavik - it was a fantastic journey," she said.

Ironically, Cath suffers from a fear of heights - and as a child she was badly affected by travel sickness.

But from an early age she has been smitten with flying and eventually turned a hobby into her career.

"My fear of heights is so bad - I get dizzy walking on a thick carpet," joked Cath. "But I have always loved flying.

"My father worked at the airfield at Glenrothes and I went to visit him one day.

"A man offered to take me up in his plane - and my father handed me a bin bag in case I wasn't well.

"But from that day forth I was bitten by the bug."

She joined her father working at the airport and eventually decided to learn to fly.

"There was no flying school on the airfield but there was at Edinburgh - and one of the instructors used to fly over to teach me," she recalled.

A fast learner, Cath went solo after just four hours and 50 minutes - whereas most have to wait until they have double that amount under their belt.

Eventually she helped set up a flying school in Edinburgh and did quite a bit of ferry flying - delivering planes.

She joined Logan Air in 1984 as a pilot's assistant. She did everything including making the tea on flights from mainland Scotland to the islands.

She continued to build up her hours until she qualified for her commercial licence - and then the sky really did become the limit.

"I didn't have to make the tea any more - and eventually I was promoted to captain.

"At that time it wasn't very common to have a female pilot but now there are far more," she said.

She wrote herself into the history books by becoming the first woman pilot to land on the beach on the island of Barra - a trip she loved to complete.

The plane is specially made for such landings and Cath enjoyed the novelty of the experience.

"The runway gets longer or shorter depending on the time of day - all you needed was 600-800m but sometimes there was 1,000m," she said. Cath admits she always takes particular pleasure in giving her passengers a smooth ride - and landing on the beach was no exception.

"I always felt really good when I landed well. I can remember in my first week there was a particularly windy day and I tried hard to land the plane smoothly.

"I then received a phone call from the chief pilot and he told me the boss of the military establishment on the island had been on my flight and had written to say how he had never experienced such a fantastic landing in such conditions," she recalled.

Both Cath and Ian plan to keep flying for as long as they possibly can.

"I don't regret my choice of career in anyway. It has been a bit of a struggle sometimes but I really enjoy it.

"We don't get to fly together too often here but when we do we enjoy it. As a couple you are naturally intuitive and when we do fly together we are even more careful -taking even longer over the safety checks. I don't want to take anything for granted just because we are flying together.

"We are keen to continue flying as long as we can and then retire at the same time so we can muck about in boats together," she said.