Writing Samples

A step up in the world of aviation for women in Canadian Forces Pilots
By Kevin Dowler

Working in a kill or be killed atmosphere, it's teamwork that keeps you alive, not your partner's sex, say training fighter pilots at CFB Cold Lake.

This is the first time the statement can be said with any merit since this is the first fighter pilot training course in Canada to include women pilots.

On Monday, June 6, at CFB Cold Lake, Canada's only CF-18 fighter pilot training centre, Capt.

Deanna Brasseur and Capt. Jane Foster began their one year training to become CF-18 fighter pilots.

If the two complete the course, they will join the one other woman in the world with fighter pilot status.

Course instructors believe that the first woman may be still flying for the Dutch Air Force. However, the instructors added, she may have retired from this role.

Brasseur and Foster will be the only two North American female fighter pilots since the United States does not allow women in active combat roles in its military forces.

Foster said it is only natural as a pilot that she is trying to reach the best of her chosen profession in attempting to become a fighter pilot.

Brasseur also agreed that their training as fighter pilots is natural.

"For the first time we will be doing something that I hope will be normal," she said about the Canadian Forces opening all facets of Air Force jobs to women service members.

In February, 1987, the Minister of National Defence, Perrin Beatty, announced the new government policy to allow women equal employment opportunity in the Canadian Forces.

At his last media event before leaving the base commander position, Brigadier General Dave Kinsman said the Forces allowing women a more active role in defence is a reflection of the Canadian society's views on women's roles.

Both Foster and Brasseur emphasized they were not doing this for women's liberation or as feminists.

Brasseur said she applied for the fighter pilot training course because of the challenge it presents her as well as the chance to fly the CF-18 fighter with its high speed and maneuverability.

"I have as much right to protect my country as any other Canadian," she added.
Foster said a fighter pilot candidate should be judged on whether they are a capable pilot and whether they know their job, not on their sex.

To make it to the fighter pilot training course is an achievement in itself in the Canadian Forces.

Out of the people that enter the Armed Forces planning to become fighter pilots, only about five out of every 1,000 make it to the fighter pilot status, Capt. Rick Gelinas a CFB Cold Lake base information officer, said.

Although Brasseur and Foster have just begun the fighter pilot training course, they have both been pilots in the Forces for over five years.

In 1981 Brasseur was one of the first three women pilots to get their wings as Forces members.

"Ever since then, I've been involved in a number of firsts," she said.

Stationed at CFB Cold Lake for the past year and a half leading the T-33 aircraft on the base, she has had control over 12 aircraft and eight pilots before moving back into the role as student.

One of the T-33 pilot's jobs is towing the targets used in the CF-5 pilot training course she is now on.

She said she is looking forward to being on the other end of the target for a change.

Before coming to CFB Cold Lake Brasseur was a pilot instructor at CFB Moose Jaw.

This puts her into the position of becoming a student with some of the pilots she once trained.

Foster, too, is in this situation as her most recent experience, before entering the fighter pilot course, was as pilot instructor at CFB Moose Jaw.

"I have an instructor at this course who was one of my students while I was at Moose Jaw," Foster said.

Having some of her past students as classmates does not upset her though.

"Having flown with most of them before, it is some reassurance to me since I already know they are good pilots," she noted.

As for their male classmates, they don't seem too concerned about their female classmates.

"If they met the standards to get into this course then they have already proven themselves to be talented pilots," classmate Lt. Ried Johnson said.

He added that the pilots rely on each other's skills when on missions and meeting the fighter pilot's standards is enough to give him the confidence "to trust his life with other pilot's skills."

"It's the teamwork that wins the battles" he said.
Another classmate, Capt. Al Benell, said, "Flying is fun and exhilarating but we are dealing with a serious business here."

"We are all prepared to die for our country but what we learn here is how to make the other guy (the enemy), die for his country."

Brasseur and Foster also said they are prepared to die for Canada, but neither are looking forward to war.

"I don't wish to go to war," Foster said. "I feel strongly about my job to keep the peace and would do my best to defend it."

Brasseur also showed no yearning to go to war.

"I don't look forward to war," she said, "but if it comes to war I hope my years of training will make me superior in battle."

Right now the class has completed the first month of the first portion of fighter pilot training.

A 419 Tactical Fighter Training Squadron course instructor said before moving onto the CF-18's, the class members have to graduate from the CF-5 seven month training course.

The course offers the fighter pilot the skills used in any type of fighter aircraft.

He said the CF-5 course will give the pilots the "most dramatic time they have ever had in the cockpit," during the dog fighting portion of the course.

"This is where a lot of the students hit their first block," he said. "Up until now they have never been in the situation where aircraft are coming at each other at 600 miles per hour attacking each other."
In the CF-5 portion of the course, he said, usually one or two students don't make it. In the last two courses he noted four from each class didn't move on to the CF-18 training.

Once the pilots graduate to CF-18 training it is unlikely they will fail that portion of the training, he added.

Brasseur and Foster's class is scheduled to graduate from the CF-5's in December and start CF-18 training in January, 1989.

As the first two women training as fighter pilots in the Canadian Forces, a lot of pressure is on the two but both are confident they will complete the training.

Brasseur said it's often hard to comprehend her achievement but said sometimes when she is at home it knocks her numb with her own astonishment.

As the potential role model of many young Canadian girls, Brasseur said her advice to them is, "the world is at your feet and it's up to you to go out and get it."