BBC: Japan's first woman fighter pilot to blaze a trail in skies
A Japanese woman will be flying through the glass ceiling as she becomes her country's first female fighter pilot.
First Lieutenant Misa Matsushima, 26, will begin duty on Friday having completed her training to fly F-15s, Japan's military has announced.
"As the first female (fighter) pilot, I will open the way," she told reporters.
Japan's air force began recruiting women in 1993 - except as fighter jet and reconnaissance aircraft pilots. It lifted that final ban in late 2015.
"Ever since I saw the movie Top Gun when I was in primary school, I have always admired fighter jet pilots," the graduate of Japan's National Defence Academy told journalists.
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WNU Editor: To my Japanese readers .... it is about time.
The JAF have the best F-15Cs in the world. Low hours and NO war hours. Perfectly maintained and well advanced. Immaculate fighters.
ReplyDeleteJEALOUS,
R,
Russ,
ReplyDeleteThat's definitely a plus to have planes with low hours and in immaculate condition. In theory, this means operational functionality should not be a problem.
The no war hours can be a problem as it signifies lack of combat experience. Good questions would be how well the pilots perform in combat? How good are the maintenance crews that will need to keep these planes operational during combat? How well will the leadership perform in combat? Another important question is how is the morale of the combat personnel?
Having well maintained and immaculate fighters that are like new is an excellent start though. Now they will need experience which they should be getting in the next few years.
The opposite of this is having equipment and personnel with a great deal of experience to the point that all of this "experience" has worn the personnel and the equipment to the breaking point, leadership is known to be suspect, morale is low, and the forces continue to be deployed repeatedly over and over again on fruitless missions that not only don't advance national interests but actually in many cases undermine them. A military such as this would have a hard time mounting basic defense of the nation's homeland let alone reasonably being expected to carry out missions elsewhere.
The fact that Japan is investing in these tends to indicate they expect to be getting some combat hours soon. A militarily strong Japan that is able and willing to operate independently of the United States would be a huge benefit as an ally to us!!