Perhaps maiden aircraftwoman Hughes performed unsatisfactorily (9)
I believe the answer is:
overacted
'perhaps maiden' is the definition.
The answer and definition are not the same part of speech. However, adjectives and past participle verbs sometimes mean the same thing.
'aircraftwoman hughes performed unsatisfactorily' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'performed' could be 'acted' (acting is a kind of performing) and 'acted' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'over' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for overacted that I've seen before include "Piled it on" , "Overdid the performance" , "Ranted on stage" , "Exaggerated" .)