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Women Who Fly
Portraits of female pilots
By Rebecca Maksel
airspacemag.com, December 19, 2008
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Susan Still, Lieutenant, United States Navy, Combat Pilot and Astronaut
In her flight suit at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Maryland, 1993.
“I wanted to be a hairdresser when I grew up. I’d sit on the back of the sofa and my mother would sit in front of me, and as long as it didn’t involve scissors or dye, she’d let me do whatever I wanted to her hair. All the women in my life were nurses, hairdressers, or secretaries, and that’s why I thought my father would not support me in being a pilot. I can remember asking him, ‘What would you think if I told you I wanted to be a pilot when I grow up?’ expecting him to say no or disagree. He said, ‘I think that would be fantastic.’ Had he not said those words, I don’t know what would have happened to me….
Some of the most dynamic flying that I did in the Tomcat was shooting the banner [shooting at a towed target]. I mean, everything happens in a split second. You’re pulling a lot of Gs, your arms are getting tired, you’re having to get your airplane in the exact piece of sky it needs to be in, at the speed and altitude it needs to be at, and you’re using your radar to get the pipper on the bull’s eye on the banner and making sure all your switches are right to shoot the bullets, and you’ve got two other airplanes out there that you have to keep in sight at the same time. So it’s like you need about six more eyeballs and two more hands and another foot to do it all, but it’s very fun when it all comes together and everybody’s doing what they’re supposed to do. You’re going fast and it’s loud and you’re pulling a lot of Gs and you get done with the flight and you’re just sweating.”
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Comments
It was a great thing the WASPS did during WWII. I was a teenager when Germany and Japan surrendered and remember the great things they did! Today, not in my Air Force career, women are flying again. This time in combat. Women C-130E crews are flying in Iraq and all the world. When I was flying C-130s I often told my wife "If you want to know where I am just read the headlines in the newspaper." These dedicated ladies are world travelers, just as we were in the 1960s and 1970s, often flying the same C-130 aircraft we flew. Little has been said about their dedication and valor. Their stories should be told in depth for posterity.
Posted by Lt.Col. Robert W. Ruffin Ret. on January 1,2009 | 10:49AM
The women never got the respect for what they done during WW-2. I flew with the RAF when I was 13 years old front gunner in a Wellington Bomber on Atlantic Patrol. I was in the Air Training Corps. We had completed all our training including gunnery and were allowed to fly relatively safe missions when we were out of school in the Summer. Just immagine the thrill at 13 of being behind a pair or .05 twin Browning machine guns in a rotating turret. We never did see a u-boat, but they were out there. Years later when I had come to America in my mid 20's I learned to fly and wound up with a Commercial Multi Engine certificate # 1416814. My greatest pleasure was flying my Luscombe 8A alone at night.
Posted by Robert A. Harbinson on February 19,2009 | 07:25PM