#First black female fighter pilot how to"The sorties (in Operation Northern Watch) were actually anticlimactic until I recognized that people were actually shooting at us," Kimbrell said.Ĭurrently the course manager for the Air Liaison Officer Course at Nellis AFB, she teaches pilots how to work with the Army in air-to-ground integration. She also flew combat sorties in Operation Northern Watch. She has been stationed at Misawa Air Base, Japan Kunsan Air Base, South Korea Aviano Air Base, Italy Fort Stewart, Ga. Using her own advice has allowed the major a successful career: She has earned an Air Medal with one device, an Aerial Achievement Medal and an Army Commendation Medal, among others. It was in those times I learned to be humble and realize there is a point in everyone's struggle - no matter how strong they are - when they need help, and the key is to seek it out before it is too late." "There were times when I didn't think that I was going to make it through. "I was in constant competition with myself, trying to do better, to make the grade," the F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot said. She earned her pilot wings in August 1999. Kimbrell graduated from the Academy in 1998 and was accepted into pilot training. "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.
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