IN at the deep end. Just the way Hannah Miley likes it. Most of the time at least.

Once again this week, this diminutive yet redoubtable 28-year-old from Aberdeenshire gets the chance to become the first Scot to make a splash at a multi-sport games, as she reprises her time-honoured role in the 400m individual medley in event one on day one of the European Championship swimming competition at Tollcross. It is a scenario she knows well, and a setting; she has visited this venue since the age of 10 or 11, long before its pre-2014 facelift, a year when she went on to thrill the crowds by taking Commonwealth gold.

She may have been beaten to the touch in the Gold Coast by Stirling-based Englishwoman Aimee Willmott in her record-breaking bid to make it three successive gold medals in the same event, but Miley has another hat-trick on her mind; a third European gold to go with her previous wins in Istanbul in 2009 and Chartres in 2012. The stats – which make her third in the continent this year behind Ilaria Cusonato of Italy and Willmott – give her a reasonable chance, although Katinka Hosszu of Hungary, who has won each of the last three editions of this title, could have something to say about it all too.

“Someone told me after the Gold Coast that it was still a historic performance, because I am now the most decorated ever athlete in the 400IM at the Commonwealth Games,” said Miley, who will also compete in the 200m individual medley in Glasgow. “I decided to put myself out there, be vulnerable enough to say that I was chasing history. It might not quite have been the type of history I was hoping for but it was still a little piece of history there in itself.

“The calibre in Europe is really strong. Hosszu is very strong. A three-time Olympic gold medallist, she is a very, very tough competitor who I have competed against since 2005, she is a few months older than me at 29. You don’t see so many IM swimmers after age of 25, but there is myself, her, and Maria Belmonte, who just announced she isn’t doing the games. In swimming, as people get older, they tend to reduce the distance, but if you look at athletics the distance tends to go up as you get older."

Considering how much of her life she spends beneath the waves, it is a surprise to learn Miley does have something of a phobia of water – in confined spaces. It is with a view to conquering that fear, paying tribute to her helicopter pilot father Patrick, and raising money for stillbirth and neonatal death charity Sands and the Baird Family Hospital Project that after finishing in Glasgow, she will take part in Helicopter Escape Training on a Surivex simulator in Aberdeen. A couple of places remain if you want to accompany Miley on the death-defying ride.

“My dad was a helicopter pilot for 26 years and it is a tough job," she said. "He has been struck by lightning three times when he has been up there. Every year they have to go through what the procedures are, give you a rough experience of what you do when your helicopter crashes in the North Sea.

"So I thought I would go out and honour everyone who does what my dad does. But I have a big fear of small places in water so I am having to face a big fear of mine. I can swim because a pool is an open space, but when you are in a helicopter shell or god forbid in a car which is dumped under water, that just freaks me out completely.”

One day Miley too may be tempted to get behind the controls of a helicopter, but she is a little wary.

“My dad took me out in the helicopter on my 17th birthday, and I was sitting on the jump seat, which is a small seat between the pilot and the co-pilot," she recalls. "Being an athlete, I was a bit fidgety, I moved my foot to one side, a small lever which looked like a handbrake, a collective lever which controls the pitch or altitude of the aircraft, it dropped a couple of feet. I think my dad has always been intrigued if me or any of my brothers would take it up and maybe one day I will learn."

For now the Scot will stick with soaring in her more conventional manner. In at the deep end.