Donna Perry of Barrington and Christine Riposo of Grayslake are rare, even in these days of relative enlightenment in which women have entered just about every field of endeavor once dominated by men.
They are the only full-time active-duty female military pilots living in Lake County-one a rescue helicopter pilot for the Coast Guard and the other a jet pilot in the Navy. In fact, they are the only full-time female pilots at their base, Glenview Naval Air Station.
Of the Coast Guard’s 1,100 pilots, only 22 are women. In the Navy, just 177 of the 9,419 pilots are women.
Women in the military have drawn new focus this year. For the Navy, fallout from the 1991 Tailhook scandal involving male pilots sexually harassing female Navy personnel is still in the news, now with courts-martial being prepared. The good news is that such an incident might simply have been hushed up in previous times. Also, Defense Secretary Les Aspin in the spring issued a directive that the hostile skies be opened to women, meaning they can fly combat missions for the U.S. military.
The armed forces are changing.
Though neither pilot plans to take Aspin up on the offer, both have faced hostile conditions that would seem to qualify as combat.
For Lt. Perry, 34, possible combat assignments have always gone with the job. The Coast Guard’s mission includes drug interdiction, which has involved her in “police action” assignments in which she has been armed and ready to respond.
Lt. Riposo, 30, included air combat training in her advanced preparation for Navy wings, making bombing and strafing runs in jet fighters. She also had to qualify for aircraft carrier flights in an A-4 Skyhawk fighter on the USS Lexington training carrier (now mothballed).
As military career women, Perry and Riposo have given serious thought to the role of women in service to their country. Their feelings about patriotism and defense of freedom are not unlike those same feelings among their male counterparts.
“Nobody wants to go to war, but I would defend our freedom and my country if called upon to do so,” Riposo said, adding that “women I know also feel this way.” Perry focuses upon the “humanitarian mission” of the Coast Guard. “I went into flying (rescue helicopters) because our bread and butter is search and rescue, helping people,” she explained.
Beyond air duties, Perry also heads the public works section of the U.S. Coast Guard air station headquartered at Glenview. Riposo flies a transport jetliner for a Navy fleet logistic support squadron headquartered at Glenview. Her non-flying duties place her in charge of squadron training and documentation of aircraft maintenance.
The fact that their units might be relocated because of base-closure recommendations doesn’t distract either of these women from their professional duties.
Both began their flying careers in two-seater, single-engine propeller training aircraft at Pensacola, Fla. They’ve come a long way since those days.
Before attending the Navy’s Air Officers Candidate School, Riposo earned a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University in East Lansing, where she majored in pre-legal studies.
Like many students, she had difficulty affording further education. Her father advised her to try the military. When tested, she showed an aptitude for flying. “I had taken some `ground school’ courses offered by the Scouts in high school, so I was as interested in flying as the Navy was,” she said. And so began her flight from her native Grand Rapids, Mich.
During the three-plus years she piloted Navy fighters out of Key West, Fla., Riposo was among the “aggressors” who flew attack missions against fellow pilots. “It was fun,” she recalled. “Those guys were good, and we helped train them.”
Riposo abandoned further combat flight training when restrictions then in place prevented her from “going to the boat,” an expression among naval aviators who thirst to fly combat jets in carrier-based squadrons. She was disappointed about the regulation after already having completed carrier flights as part of her flight training.
“How would you feel,” she asked, “if you as a qualified writer were offered a janitor’s job by your newspaper?” Even though the restriction on women in combat assignments has changed, Riposo isn’t looking back. She has another, more personal reason for preferring to fly land-based transports. She married another Navy officer while in Key West, and she and husband David agreed to plan their further Navy careers together.
“We could co-locate our assignments easier if I opted for piloting fleet transport planes,” she explained. “I’m no longer interested in further combat training. I now prefer flying the C-9s (military version of DC-9) and could do it for 20 years,” she added, noting that 300 of her 1,100 total flight hours were on C-9s.
Riposo has been at her present Glenview-based assignment for 18 months and has been in the Navy for six years.
Her squadron, a Reserve unit, is headed by Cmdr. Roger Melin. “It’s essential that we have full-time, qualified people like Lt. Riposo because our squadron does the real thing, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said. Riposo is classified as a training and administration of reserves officer. As such, she is a reservist in a full-time active-duty assignment.
“It’s a great life working with great people and traveling all over, ferrying people to and from different bases,” she said. There are only 12 bases with the C-9 Skytrains, and Riposo figures pilots for the big transports will always be in demand. Riposo’s assignments have taken her to Alaska, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Japan, Norway and elsewhere.
“We have 27 pilots in the squadron, and I am one of two women among them,” she explained. The other female C-9 pilot is Cmdr. Robin Braun of Northbrook, a part-time reservist who flies during her monthly drill weekends.
The squadron’s flights have ranged as far as Navy fleets operating in the Mediterranean and the Pacific. Their 119-foot-long, 93-foot-wingspan transports have operating ceilings of 37,000 feet and can cruise 2,500 nautical miles at 500 m.p.h. without refueling. When serving fleet ships, these jets use land-based facilities near the fleet, and freight then is transported to the ships.
The squadron’s operations status board shows at least one flight daily during a typical week. Some days have two flights scheduled. When flying for several days at a time, Riposo shares first chair, or “captain,” duties with another pilot. “On the outward leg, if I co-pilot, then I pilot on the homeward leg,” she explained.
The C-9s can carry 90 passengers in airline-style comfort. Riposo said there is “always coffee” and minimal meal service: “mostly box lunches and candy bars.” If the flight is a cargo run, some or all of the seats are removed and about 60,000 pounds can be loaded through the side cargo door.
Husband David, also a lieutenant, is assistant officer in charge of the Great Lakes Naval Training Center electronics schools department.
“I flew with Chris in a trainer, in the back seat,” he said. “We were not yet involved in a personal way.”
Before they married 3 1/2 years ago, they had already done some planning on co-location assignments. Chris wanted to fly, and David wanted to work toward a master’s degree in business administration. Here, they both got their wish.
Family plans are on hold for now. “That takes a certain amount of advanced planning,” David said. Both will remain in their present jobs for at least another year. A non-flying assignment for Chris would allow her to be grounded long enough for them to begin raising a child.
“We’ve gone where the Navy has sent us and haven’t been separated. The Navy has given us what we needed both professionally and personally,” David said. The Riposos bought a home in Grayslake about a year ago.
Chris rejects the stereotype of “a woman doing a man’s job.”
“I feel like part of the crew, and nobody’s really different than anybody else,” she said. “I’ve always done what I’ve wanted to do and never thought differently about it. Others have always accepted that. I just say, `I want to do this, okay?’ And everyone says, `Okay.’ “
“I’ve trained with Chris, and she is very professional, a very good pilot and a good officer,” said Lt. Cmdr. Stan Markovich, another pilot in Chris’ squadron. Then he added a trait that probably has smoothed the atmophere for her: “She also has a good sense of humor.”
Donna Perry is likewise committed to a military career. Her Coast Guard unit, which she joined two years ago, occupies about seven acres at the northern edge of the Glenview base. Perry enlisted in 1983, became an officer in 1987 and served on boats before going to flight school. She is the only active-duty female rescue helicopter pilot on this side of Lake Michigan, according to her skipper, Capt. Bruce I. Merchant.
Perry has more than 700 flight hours to her credit, with about 600 being on helicopters. The Coast Guard operates the world’s largest search and rescue organization, at the same time maintaining an armed force prepared to carry out specific naval or military tasks in time of war or emergency. This service is under the U.S. Department of Transportation in peacetime.
The self-contained, self-supporting hangar and adjacent facilities of Air Station Chicago enable it to patrol the southern half of Lake Michigan and respond to rescue calls, mainly from recreational boaters. The unit also assists the Air Force in conducting overland search and rescue operations within the “circle” of its assigned area of responsibility.
Its two rescue helicopters work over water in tandem with Coast Guard rescue boats based at Wilmette and Calumet Harbor, as well as Kenosha and Milwaukee, and Michigan City, Ind.
Perry is one of two women among the 13 officers and 45 enlisted personnel at the station.
The other woman is yeoman (secretary) Petty Officer Patricia Amacker of Palatine. Both Perry and Amacker consider the Coast Guard even-handed in dealing with the sexes. Perry pointed out that her service led the way in providing opportunities for women.
“In 1973, the Coast Guard began accepting women for officer’s training, and in 1974 enlisted women were welcomed also,” she explained. “Two years later they dropped restrictions on all assignments and specialties for women, something the other services are just beginning to do.”
The two aircraft at Air Station Chicago are French-built Dolphin twin-turbine helicopters, which can be airborne within 30 minutes after being called. They are equipped with rescue hoists and can carry three rescue victims each. They can fly at speeds of 190 m.p.h. with a 300-nautical-mile round-trip range, including 30 minutes of “search and hover.”
“When `Mayday’ is called, we go,” Perry said.
During the past 21 years, the station has flown more than 2,000 search-and-rescue missions and is credited with saving more than 300 lives.
Perry’s most memorable rescue occurred last winter on an overland mission searching above the Kettle Moraine State Park in southeastern Wisconsin. A man had become stuck in swamp ice up to his knees, and ground searchers could hear his calls for help but could not see him. “We sighted him from above and lowered a rescue basket with a crewman to assist him,” Perry said. “We took him to a nearby small airport where an ambulance then took him to a hospital, and he survived.”
Winter rescue calls are fewer than those for summer months, when boaters are active. “We get maybe one call a week in the winter where someone goes through the ice on a river or small lake,” she said. In the summer, boater calls average about three per week.
Running a rescue mission is hazardous in itself. “Even though we have on-board computers as sophisticated as those in jet airliners, we pilots have to hover and maneuver under the radio guidance of a rescue crewman once we’re over our target, in all kinds of weather,” she explained.
Some rescues require putting a swimmer into the water to assist a victim and then hoisting them both back aboard.
True combat situations also have arisen in Perry’s career, when she served as one of five women among the 12 officers on the USCGC (Coast Guard cutter) Steadfast out of St. Petersburg, Fla.
When the Steadfast went on drug-interdiction missions, officers led boarding parties. “We were armed with .45s or 9 mm automatics, wore body armor, had night sticks and cuffs. Of course, we went through extra training for this duty, learning use of force, working with local police departments,” Perry recalled.
Other duty stations where she has served were Sandusky and Marblehead, both in her native state of Ohio. Perry’s ambition is to move up in the ranks. She eventually hopes to head operations at a larger station.
Her present station is one of the Coast Guard’s smallest units. “There may even be a station command in my future,” she said confidently, pointing out that Detroit’s air station is headed by a woman.
“Donna is very professional in the performance of her duties and very pleasant to work with,” said Lt. Brad Bean, one of the men who flies with Perry.
As for flying with a woman, he said that when pilots put their helmets on, everybody’s the same. “We all wear helmets in the cockpit, and you don’t know who’s who.”
“I used to think I had to act like a guy, but found out if you just be yourself, you’ll be accepted,” Perry said. “I’ve only run into one or two people who had a problem in general, and once they got to know me, it was okay.”
Perry and Bean both were called to rescue duty following flooding in St. Louis this summer.
As with Riposo, flying is not all Perry does. As public works officer for the station she heads a staff of seven responsible for the maintenance and repair of station facilities. Hangar, office, operations, communications, berthing, mess, repair and recreational facilities are all in 30,000 compact square feet of buildings at the Glenview station.
In addition, her department administers leases for family housing apartments in nearby suburbs and is responsible for maintenance and conditions at 12 Coast Guard-owned houses in Prairie View.
In her spare time, Perry, who is single, gives many hours to Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington. She takes a week’s leave in May to help open their summer youth camp in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She also helps to lead groups from the church on weekend rock-climbing adventures to Devil’s Lake State Park in Wisconsin.
And she practices classical and bluegrass guitar. “Being an only child, I value my personal time and keep busy,” she said.
Perry is a native of Wellington, Ohio, where she worked as a high school substitute teacher after earning her bachelor’s degree in education from Ohio University in Athens in 1982 before joining the Coast Guard.
It’s a long way from the teacher’s desk to the pilot’s seat. But that’s a leap more and more women will be making.
As Defense Secretary Aspin said when asked if the opening of combat pilot positions for women was related to the Tailhook scandal, “No, that’s not part of the timing, but we hope that’s part of the message.”
