Barbara Cooper ( RAF officer ) Air Commodore Barbara Cooper , CBE ( born 1958 ) is a retired British Royal Air Force officer and former Commandant of the Air Cadet Organisation ( ACO ) . She was promoted to Air Commodore in 2008 and became the RAF ' s highest - ranking female . She became the Assistant Chief of Staff ( Manning ) at Air Command headquarters . She previously served at the tri - Service military Defence Academy in Shrivenham as Division Director . Early life . Born in Canada , Cooper moved with her family to Britain aged eleven . She lived in Worcestershire , where she attended Evesham High School . Military career . On a short service commission in 1979 , Cooper joined the Women ' s Royal Air Force ( WRAF ) in the role of air - traffic controller , at a time when far fewer women were in the Service . She served for seven years . She was promoted from flying officer to flight lieutenant on 3 June 1984 . She transferred to the reserves on 2 February 1985 . On leaving , she went on to gain qualifications in property management . Finding she missed the Service , she chose to return to the WRAF , entering the Administrative Branch as a flight lieutenant on 16 October 1987 with seniority from 16 April 1987 . Since the 1980s , Cooper has had a number of postings , including as staff officer to the Chief of the Air Staff ( the most senior position in the RAF ) . During the Gulf War , she had responsibility for running the Prisoner of War Information Bureau , acting as liaison to the International Committee of the Red Cross . Cooper was promoted to squadron leader on 5 January 1993 , and to wing commander on 1 July 1997 . She served a two - year tenure at RAF Lyneham ( to March 2000 ) , in which Wing Commander Cooper was in charge of base support and where her staff provided operational support for troop movements to Sierra Leone . Thereafter she was stationed at Joint Services Command and Staff College ( JSCSC ) at Shrivenham , which relocated there in the same year . In the second Gulf Conflict , Cooper served as Deputy Director Service Personnel Policy ( Operations and Manning ) , which includes operational welfare policy , and included reporting before the government Select Committee on Defence . In 2005 , Cooper assumed the role of Director Royal Air Force Division at the Defence Academy , which formed in April 2002 as a consolidation of the constituent colleges such as the JSCSC , and Royal College of Defence Studies . From 2007 she was appointed Assistant Chief of Staff Manpower and Personnel Capability at RAF Air Command HQ . At the beginning of the following year , Cooper was promoted from Group Captain to the rank of Air Commodore , becoming the most senior female officer in the British armed forces . From May 2010 she became the senior officer responsible for running the Air Cadet Organisation ( ACO ) . Her first public appearance in her new Commandant role followed one week later at the Cadet150 reception commemorating 150 years of the Cadet Forces of the tri - Service military . The following month she attended the second of the two sesquicentenary events , a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace , where she spoke to Air Training Corps members from all over the UK . Personal life . Cooper lives in Cirencester , with her husband William , a retired RAF officer . Among those she admires she considers suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst her greatest inspiration . Her interests include gardening , cycling and watching horseriding events . She lists her favourite author as Shakespeare , she enjoys gardening , walking , cycling and the theatre and is president of the RAF Theatrical Association and the RAF Netball Association . In 2012 she was elected to the Council of the National Trust . Honours and decorations . Cooper was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire ( OBE ) in the 2001 New Year Honours . She was promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( CBE ) on 31 October 2003 " in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in connection with operations in Iraq during the period 19th March to 19th April 2003 " .