The Blue Guidon The Newsletter of Andover and the Military
Spring 2025
A Look Back: Opening the Cockpit to Women Pilots in the 1970s By Col. Edward H. Parker Jr. ’56, MD, USAF (Ret.)
Women were not permitted by Congress to become pilots in the U.S. Air Force until 1976. My involvement with the change to allow women pilots started in 1975 when I was assigned as the chief of aerospace medicine for Air Training Command (ATC), with headquarters at Randolph AFB adjacent to San Antonio, Texas. ATC was the command responsible for pilot and navigator training. There was considerable resistance to allowing women pilots in the Air Force. The resistance that I personally faced was letters sent to my boss, a brigadier general, saying that it was not safe to have women fly high-performance airplanes let alone fly combat missions. The U.S. Air Force Academy and other people inside and outside the Air Force objected to having women pilots. The pressure was not great to change the policy during the Vietnam War as we needed and trained about 4,000 pilots every year. After we no longer flew combat and support missions in Vietnam, our pilot training numbers dropped to 1,500 per year. With fewer flying slots available for training it meant not all Air Force Academy cadets who wanted to fly would get an opportunity after graduation. I was fortunate to have support from active duty and retired pilots who were certain, as was I, that women could learn to fly—including combat missions. In fact, a retired general who was one of my patients said, “Doc, we could teach your grandmother to fly a barn door, but we are only allowed one year to do the training.” With the help of a senior Air Force physician, I was able to form a committee to discuss the physical and medical issues related to women and flying. It was determined that the primary condition that would temporarily interfere with training would be if the student was pregnant. First, we had no data to tell us if pulling increased G-loads might induce labor. Second, once the woman’s uterus enlarged, she may have trouble getting into the airplane—and a large abdomen would block the use of the stick or yoke. Also, morning sickness would interfere with training. Gen. John Roberts, commander of ATC, asked me to brief him on these issues. At the end of the briefing, he said I would not have any further
problems with the folks at the Air Force Academy. I asked him why. He pointed to the epaulette on one shoulder with four stars on it and said, “because four stars outranks three stars,” which was the rank of the superintendent of the Air Force Academy. Ten women were in the first class to enter pilot training. All were trained at Williams AFB near Phoenix. They all graduated and received their silver wings in September 1977. Thirty-six men were in the same class. I was not involved in reviewing the records of the student cadets, nor was I involved in their medical care. One of the women was the first to qualify as an aircraft commander. Another commanded a C-141 four-engine jet transport. Another became an instructor pilot. The number of female pilots in the military has grown slowly but steadily. In early 2025, the Air Force reported 1,155 female pilots—approximately 7.6% of the total pilot population.
“ The official inclusion of women as pilots in the U.S. military absolutely helped pave the way for my own journey as an F-18 pilot in the Navy. The perseverance and commitment to excellence of the early female trailblazers shattered so many barriers. I can tell you from experience that the jet does not care about gender—it cares about being on target, on time.” —Cmdr. Rebecca Calder ’94, USN (Ret.) First female pilot to graduate from TOPGUN (2004)