The Quiet Pioneers

Women pilots who fly Air Force fighters and bombers have made their mark and earned respect. USAF photo by SSgt. William Greer The Quiet Pioneers AJA, Combo, Spyce, Shooter, Shock: They’re all call signs of mission- Bqualified fighter and bomber pilots, and the only unusual thing about them is that these monikers of warrior-group bonding belong to women. April 2003 will mark 10 years since the Air Force changed its policy to permit women to take up combat assignments as fighter and bomber pilots. Since then, dozens of female officers have completed rigorous training to become proficient in flying fighters and bombers. Critics predicted they’d never integrate smoothly. Two women pilots By Rebecca Grant spurred negative attention early on. Media interest surged when Navy F-14 pilot Lt. Kara S. Hultgreen died in a carrier landing in October 1994. Accusations of improper Navy training procedures followed. Air Force B-52 34 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2002 pilot 1st Lt. Kelly J. Flinn made Aspin’s 1993 decision came just headlines in 1997 when she was dis- in time for Flynn. As a highly skilled charged from the Air Force for dis- young female pilot, Flynn’s next ciplinary issues. Commentators la- option after the FAIP assignment beled the issue of women in the most likely would have been to KC- cockpit as social engineering and 10s, the cream of the crop of flying predicted readiness would suffer. assignments outside the fighter and Meanwhile, from Stateside train- bomber communities. Tanker and ing bases to deployed locations all airlift crews welcomed an earlier over the world, the cadre of female generation of women such as Col. fighter and bomber pilots flour- Pamela A. Melroy, commissioned in ished. 1983, who flew KC-10s in Desert Storm and then moved on to Air Lifting the Ban Force Test Pilot School and from Congress removed the legal ban there to NASA, where she is an as- on women in combat aircraft by pass- tronaut with two shuttle missions ing Public Law 102-190 in Decem- under her belt. ber 1991. But Department of De- The Air Force looked back over fense policy still prohibited women the records of two years’ worth of from taking up combat aircraft as- Undergraduate Pilot Training classes signments. Secretary of Defense Les to find women whose class rankings Aspin lifted the policy ban on April would have qualified them to select 28, 1993. a fighter or bomber at the time they The Air Force had already been graduated. The hunt also factored in contemplating how to respond, and how many fighter and bomber slots nothing brought the matter to a head were available to each class, some- more clearly than the case of a young times a number as low as one. Based lieutenant named Jeannie M. Flynn. on these criteria, the Air Force iden- Flynn was commissioned through tified three pilots who would have ROTC and received a master’s de- been sent to fighters or bombers had gree in aerospace engineering be- the ban not been still in place. These fore heading off to pilot training. included Flynn and then–Capt. Mar- Flynn had graduated first in her Un- tha McSally. By the end of 1993, Nearly 10 years ago, USAF changed its policy to permit female fighter dergraduate Pilot Training class in seven women were in training to fly and bomber combat pilots. The 1992. Air Force rules called for newly fighters. measure of merit is performance. minted pilots to select their weapon system based on merit and cockpit Women Pilots in Combat availability. The early 1990s were Flynn went to four weeks of fighter the days of banked pilots and dwin- lead-in training in T-38s and on to dling choices for assignments. Typi- the schoolhouse for F-15E training, cal pilot training classes competed then at Luke AFB, Ariz. In February for one or two fighter seats. Flynn 1994, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. earned the right to choose first, and Merrill A. McPeak introduced Flynn she selected the plum: an F-15E as- to the press as the Air Force’s first signment. mission-qualified female fighter pi- With the policy restriction still in lot. place, the Air Force could not com- “She didn’t ask for anything from ply and sent Flynn to be a First As- anybody,” said McPeak. “Nobody signment Instructor Pilot, teaching gave her anything, and she went right students to fly the T-38. Meanwhile, through that course just like every- Flynn’s case wound its way through body else. Everybody in the squad- the bureaucracy, ultimately to be ron had very high respect for her. reviewed by Air Force Secretary And in her opinion, the F-15E is the Donald B. Rice, who found his hands world’s greatest airplane.” tied by Pentagon policy. Flynn and the F-15E were indeed Flynn’s case pointed out the dis- a good match. She went on to log crepancy between the exclusion more than 2,000 hours in the F-15E policy and the Air Force’s stan- by the end of 2002, including 200 dards. Fighter pilots are trained, hours of combat time in Operation not born. Flynn made the grade by Allied Force. She was the first fe- objective standards but found her male fighter pilot to graduate from options limited by a policy sug- the USAF Weapons School at Nellis gesting women would get in over AFB, Nev., and is currently assigned their heads. as an F-15E instructor at the school— AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2002 35 once again, the first woman to hold A. “Combo” Weeks, who is now an Weeks recalled then–Capt. Jeannie that post. F-15C pilot with more than 700 hours Flynn coming to the academy to ad- By 1994 the Air Force had seven at the 94th Fighter Squadron at Lang- dress the cadets. At Undergraduate female fighter pilots—including ley AFB, Va. Weeks had two things Pilot Training at Laughlin AFB, Tex., Flynn—and two bomber pilots. in common with legions of fighter “it was the exact normal pilot train- In 1995, McSally became the first pilots before her. She came from a ing experience for anybody,” said Air Force female pilot to fly a com- military family, and her determina- Weeks. Her class of 30 started out bat aircraft into enemy territory— tion to fly sprouted early. with five women. One washed out, the no-fly zone mission over Iraq. “My father was a master sergeant and Weeks was the only one selected McSally was an athletic Air Force in the Air Force, so I grew up in it,” to split to the fighter–bomber track Academy graduate who’d had to get Weeks explained in a recent inter- in T-38s. Once on the track, Weeks a waiver to fly because at five feet view. “We were stationed in [RAF] found it to be smooth sailing. three inches she was one inch under Lakenheath [UK]. When I was about “There was no ‘oh gosh, a girl’s the regulation height. She made Air five years old, and we were flying coming,’ ” she said. Then at Tyndall, Force history flying the A-10. back from England on a KC-135, we “I actually had as one of my instruc- While the Air Force worked women refueled F-15s over the Atlantic. I tor pilots the very first female F-15C into the fighter and bomber squad- decided I had to do that.” pilot [then–Capt. Maria “Baja” Ran- rons with few hiccups, the numbers Her parents were skeptical at first. dolph], so it wasn’t a big deal at all.” of women in combat cockpits did not “I was just patted on the back, ‘Girls grow fast. In 1998, there were still don’t do that,’ ” said Weeks. “And I A B-1B Pilot only eight bomber pilots and 25 just kept saying, ‘Nope, I’m gonna, Capt. Kimberly Dawn Monroe, a fighter pilots, a tiny fraction of the I’m gonna, I’m gonna.’” Soon her B-1 pilot, had a story typical of this overall force. But the numbers were parents were “definitely supportive new generation. “I was always inter- on the rise. Fueled by accessions of it. Initially, they’re like, sure she’ll ested in flying, ever since I was about from the Air Force Academy, a new change 20 times; next week she’s five years old,” Monroe said. Flying group of women who’d never expe- going to want to be a hairdresser. first captivated her on an airline flight rienced the combat exclusion ban But I didn’t.” to visit her grandparents. “I thought were making it through Undergradu- The desire stayed and in junior I always wanted to be a stewardess, ate Pilot Training with high marks. high school, Weeks asked a startled but once I got into high school, they Three Air Force female combat guidance counselor for a book on the were offering a ground school course pilots agreed—a little reluctantly— Air Force Academy and never looked for a private pilot’s license for free, to be interviewed for this story. The back. Years later at Tyndall AFB, and so that really interested me,” she big news? They love flying. They Fla., when “I went solo to the tanker, said. “I took that, and then my grand- love the Air Force. They talk just my life had come full circle,” she parents gave me my flying lessons like the guys. said. “Rather than being the five- as a graduation present.

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