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Carol Vordermantakes the Telegraph up in her plane to explain her love of flying, her plans to follow in Amelia Earhart's footsteps flying solo around the world and why girls need to know of the unsung inspirational British female pilots The former Countdown presenter first developed an interest in aviation as a child growing up in North Wales. She joined Cambridge university at the age 17 to study engineering, but was prevented form joining the university air squadron because she was a woman. Undeterred she wrote to British Airways with the hope being trained to be a pilot after graduation but found they were closing their training school. She instead landed a role on Channel 4's Countdown in 1982 and her TV career and children took over her life. Meeting her boyfriend Graham Duff, a former Red Arrows Squadron Leader, two years ago, reignited her interest in flying again. Having gained her private pilot's licence last December, which qualifies her to fly with passengers, she now plans to circumnavigate the globe in a year's time, following in the footsteps of Amelia Earhart, who became the first women to fly across the Atlantic and the first person to fly solo across both the Atlantic and Pacific before disappearing on a flight in mysterious circumstances in 1937. But while Amelia Earhart is a household name, the exploits of pioneering female British pilots, such as Milred Bruce and Richarda Morrow-Tait, who was the first woman pilot to fly around the world are much less well known, she said. "Those are two women, that I think particularly young girls should get to know about. [I wish] I had known about them when I was young. They are inspirational women," she said. "So I'm bigging up the girls in aviation." Get the latest headlines http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ Subscribe to The Telegraph http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=telegraphtv Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/telegraph.co.uk Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/telegraph Follow us on Google+ https://plus.google.com/102891355072777008500/ Telegraph.co.uk and YouTube.com/TelegraphTV are websites of The Daily Telegraph, the UK's best-selling quality daily newspaper providing news and analysis on UK and world events, business, sport, lifestyle and culture.