3/16/2023 0 Comments First black female fighter pilot![]() ![]() "If you don't have it, you push through."Īnd push through she did. "I think sometimes you lull yourself into thinking, 'OK, I have that plan, and if it gets hard I'll go to the back-up plan,'" she added. "I didn't think about a back-up plan, I didn't think about a 'what if it doesn't work out plan.' "I think what kept me on the straight and narrow is that I didn't give myself any other options," Kimbrell said. She did all of this despite people telling her as a child that there were no female fighter pilots, people asking her about all the what-ifs that would derail her plans. Eventually, she was accepted into the Air Force Academy. She joined the Civil Air Patrol, worked at air shows and earned her private pilot's license. With that goal in mind, she found every opportunity get closer to the flying world and the military. While Kimbrell remained fascinated with space, the freedom of flight is what she really wanted: aerial acrobatics, rolling inverted and more. "So I started to look at the jets and flying fighters." which would be awesome, but it's just one time," the major said. "I decided to focus on something I could do every day versus maybe going to the moon one time. But as she got older and did more research into joining the astronaut corps, she realized the career wasn't as exciting as she wanted it to be. While in kindergarten, for example, she decided she wanted to be an astronaut, so she wrote a letter to NASA asking how she could join the program. On top of that family modus operandi, Kimbrell had a goal-driven personality from an early age. "If you got your education, you could do whatever you wanted to do. "(Education) was the thing that opened doors," Kimbrell said. That focus on education was a big part of life for Kimbrell and her three older siblings as they spent their school years in Parker. ![]() Their hard work and dedication paid off in her father earning a degree from Howard University and a doctorate from Purdue University, which in turn earned him a job offer in Parker, Colo. citizens by the time she was born, moved to the U.S. Her mother and father, who were naturalized U.S. Kimbrell was born in Lafayette, Ind., on April 20, 1976, to Guyanese parents. What the now-Air Force major didn't know, however, was that she would knock down a racial barrier by becoming the first black female in the career field. ![]() (AFNS) - By the time she was in fourth grade, young Shawna Rochelle Kimbrell knew she wanted to be a fighter pilot. On June 30, the Navy announced that it was creating a task force to "address the issues of racism, sexism and other destructive biases and their impact on naval readiness.FORT GEORGE G. According to a 2018 investigation of racial bias in the training of naval aviators, found that of the 1,404 pilots who flew F/A-18 Hornets, just 26 were Black. The investigation also found that there were just 33 female Hornet pilots in the Navy, and all but one were White. With the Navy's aviation department being composed of mostly white men, Swegle's history-making achievement breaks both gender and racial glass ceilings. Vernice "FlyGirl" Armour became the first Black female pilot in the Marine Corps in 2001, and the first Black female combat pilot in the entire U.S. Swegle's accomplishment also comes 19 years after Capt. ![]() And later in her career, according to Women in Aviation International, Robinson went on to become the first Black female flight instructor, evaluator and VIP transport pilot in the Navy. In 1981, she made history again by becoming the first Black woman certified for C-1A carrier onboard delivery carrier landings. Brenda Robinson made history in 1980 as the first Black female graduate from Aviation Officer Candidate School, reports the Navy Times. News of Swegle's accomplishment comes 40 years after Lt. ![]()
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