During the Korean war, the North Koreans had the first female fighter pilot in the world. She flew the Mig 15 in combat and rose to the rank of Squadron leader.
After the Korean War, women became involved in all aspects of aviation, from Air Traffic Controllers to cabin crew and even astronauts. Nowadays, it's not uncommon to see full flight decks with at least one woman being part of the flight crew. I think we need to encourage all women to make the career move into the flight deck. Currently, the global average is no more than 3%. Shocking if you ask me. We need more, and it might just be what we need to combat the pilot shortage happening around the world.
During my time in the RCAF, when I was a flight instructor in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, I was appointed one of the first female student military pilots. The Canadian military wanted to experiment using only four females at a time to see the results. If the results were positive, they would open the door to all women.
My allocated student was a tall, slim, attractive young woman who knew that she was in the limelight. And so was I! I carried out the training as normal. Just as if she was one of the boys.
The training went very smoothly, and I did not see anything different from any other students I had. However, one interesting phenomenon I discovered while flying with her is that her 'G' tolerance was better than most male students. Pulling a high G load while flying a military jet is an essential attribute to all fighter pilots. The higher the G loading you can sustain, the longer you will survive in an air superiority theatre. It would mean the difference between life and death in an air combat scenario.
For the next 24 months of training, I tried every time to get her to black out (G-LOC - Loss of Consciousness). She was incredible. She could stay awake like there was nothing to it. Amazing!
I concluded that female pilots are better suited to be fighter pilots than men just because of their physical attributes that men don't have. I'll let the readers think about that one.
She graduated with flying colours, and she went on to Transport Command, flying the mighty Hercules C130 aircraft.