Aviatrixes

 

Women make up about 12 percent of naval aviators. The first female aviators joined the fleet in 1974. Following the repeal of the Combat Exclusion Act in 1993, Navy Lt. Kimberly Dyson was the first female aviator who flew combat missions. In 1994, she flew her F/A-18 Hornet over Iraq, and in 1995 over Bosnia, where she was joined by a dozen other female aviators, during Operations Southern Watch and Deny Flight. In 1998, Lt. Kendra Williams was the first female naval aviator to drop bombs on an enemy position, during Operation Desert Fox in Iraq.

It takes up to three years to earn your wings (depending on the type of aircraft you are trained to fly) — that’s after you complete OCS as a Student Naval Aviator (after having a four-year college degree). Drop-out rate for OCS can be as high as 35 percent. (You can also enter the pipeline via ROTC and the Academy but I don't know about that.) 

After OCS, you are sent to Aviation Pre-flight Indoctrination school. It is six weeks of classroom and field study involving weather, navigation, engines, and aerodynamics. Tests every other day. Studying hard here is a must. There is also swim and survival training which teaches you how to escape from a ditched aircraft, including being upside down under water wearing a blackout helmet. If you are not a strong swimmer or panic easily, you will not pass. The drop-out rate is about 20 percent.

The next step used to be Introductory Flight Screening, where you were taught to fly in a Cessna 172, being required to solo after no more than 15 hours dual instruction. Then you had to make three solo flights, including one solo cross-country flight. Total of 24 flight hours. That program has been changed recently and I don’t know the details. The drop-out rate was about five percent.

Then you went on to Primary Flight Training in a T-6B, six months of rigorous flight training lasting six months with a drop-out rate of about 10 percent.

After that came Advance training with different pipelines for different aircraft — helos, tilt-rotors, multi-engine and strike fighters. The attrition rate varied by aircraft type, five to 10 percent.

Strike training in the T-45 took about six months. You were trained in mission skills and tactical maneuvers, then taught how to land on an aircraft carrier, first with 100 simulated carrier traps on land (Field Carrier Landing Practice), then on an actual carrier where you had to complete 10 traps and six touch-and-goes (aka crash-and-dash); that is, you landed and immediately took off without catching a wire. This segment of the training has been changed recently but I don’t know about it.

After completing all that, you earned your wings and were assigned to your RAG (Replacement Air Group), officially called a Fleet Replacement Squadron, where you honed your skills for up to a year before being assigned to a carrier air wing.

Once you are winged, you are obligated to serve for a certain number of years.

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One of the reasons there are so few black naval aviators might be the dunker test, which teaches you how to escape from a ditched fixed-wing or helo. (There were only 15 when I checked a couple of years ago, about the time one of them killed himself crashing into his tanker while attempting a night refueling. He killed the crew of the tanker, too.  Not blaming him. These things happen. It's a dangerous profession.)

A crane drops this thing called a METS (Modular Egress Training Simulator) into a pool of water. You are strapped into it in all your gear. It sinks and the first time you have to unbuckle and get out the nearest escape hatch and swim to the surface within a specified time. The next time you have to get out a specific escape hatch not near you that is also being exited by others rushing to get out. Try to avoid being kicked in the face. The third time the dunker rotates upside down and you do it hanging from your straps. The fourth time you do it upright but with a blackout helmet so you can't see anything, and the fifth time you do that upside down and blind.

It seems that black candidates have the most difficulty with this part of training and are the most likely to panic. I don't think there is any physical reason why they couldn't pass this test as well as anyone. I think it is a psychological problem, like some people being afraid of heights.