First all-female air crew honored for 'Ace' status after drone attack

So, my call sign, I wish I could tell you the story

You have to technically buy a fighter pilot or fighter wizzow a drink, but I can say it

stands for girl, you're nuts. Fighter pilot culture is more of an attitude

Being a pit bull on a leash. October 2023. I had just become a two-ship WIZO, or weapons systems officer, which means I could lead a two-ship formation

And my squadron at 492nd was deployed to the Middle East. There was conflict between Israel and Iran

The tensions were really high. And on April 13th of 2024, everyone was starting to catch wind that something big was going to happen

ATOMIC and I, we had the opportunity to be number two of a two ship of alert lines in

response to this possible drone onslaught that we're expecting. I was excited to actually get action because I haven't had that opportunity up until that

point, but also nervous that I knew that if we failed, it would be catastrophic for civilians

After about five to like ten minutes, we started to see on our sensors like some possible drones

popping up. And I remember thinking this is actually happening. This is going to be a life

changing event for us. We captured it on the radar. I queued up the targeting pod. As a

I'm the final authority to drop the weapon. And the words left my mouth clear to shoot

And Atomic pressed on the button and held it for an uncomfortable amount of time and that when a flash of light from the left side of our jet just like out of the corner of my eye I see it Two to five seconds later I see an explosion on my screen

In the heat of the moment, I assess that Atomic and I only shot down three drones

It wasn't until we get to the debrief that we put in our tapes, which essentially records everything

that we shot, and we realized that we actually shot down five drones. Five is a magic number in the

aviation community. Since the beginning of flying in World War I, ACE has been known as having five

aerial victories, and this hasn't happened in a couple decades. To be part of the first fighter

squadron to have done it in that decade was amazing, so it was a shared victory for all of us

It was a selfless moment of being willing to get into an aircraft and face overwhelming odds

and then come out on top. After that deployment, it was time for me to move on to my next assignment

which was going to be NAS Pensacola. My role is an instructor, 455th Formation Flight Commander

What we have here is the only pipeline forces is in the entire Air Force

So failure here is potentially failure for the Air Force. I have a bubbly personality, and I'm very friendly

but I take training very seriously, so I will lay it to them straight whether they are meeting the standard or not

I know I come from a different demographic, a different background, a different gender entirely than probably 80% of the Air Force now

Thank goodness I've always been seen as an equal. And I really want to make sure young women that are seeking a career in aviation

know that it's definitely an opportunity. Part of our training process is to make sure that we hand over the experiences that we gain

And certainly Captain Guns Nava is going to be able to take those experiences and start feeding that into some of the lieutenants that are going through our program today

Thank you