Flying the flag

It’s not often that one is lauded as a pioneer when they’ve only just begun training for the very achievement they are being celebrated for. In fact, it could be considered downright suspect.

But when Salma Mohammed Al-Baloushi and Aisha Hassan Salim Al Mansoori got the call last June to inform them of their inclusion in a book entitled The 100 Greatest Women in Aviation by Liz Moscrop, it was after a long journey of hope and determination, not to mention undertaking a barrage of rigorous tests and fighting off skepticism about entering such a male-dominated field.

These two inspiring young women are the UAE’s first female cadet pilots and part of Etihad’s promotional campaign to encourage Emiratis into the fold.

I meet them at the very place their life has revolved around since gaining their place alongside ten men in the programme to ‘earn their Wings’. The scenic road from Al Ain city to the airport is flanked by undulating red desert hills and off to one side of the palm-lined road, a herd of camels potter.

One can only hope they don’t have sensitive ears, because the airport is home to the Horizon Flight Academy (the ‘Top Gun’ of the UAE), and cadet pilots fly ‘missions’ over this serene location, often twice daily.

The huge orange Horizon Academy building blends in nicely with the surrounding desert and the airport hangar where I meet Al-Baloushi and Al Mansoori houses single-engine Cessna and double-engine Diamonds planes, which are used specifically for training.

Both women are dressed in standard Etihad pilot uniform and wear traditional black headscarves. It’s not required by the airline, Al Mansoori tells me, but is a “personal choice”.

The first thing that strikes me about this pretty, young woman is the quiet sense of calm she exudes – which clearly belies great character, given her choice of career – particularly when she tells me she is just 19 years old. This is one focused teenager.

Inspired by her experience flying at the Al Ain Airshow with Russian astronauts two years ago – ” it was a zero gravity experience and I also got to see the cockpit, so it was really cool” – she wasted no time in taking her enthusiasm a significant step further.

“I was doing my finals at school and had my assessments for Etihad at the same time,” she explains. “Even at my interview they said ‘how can you be sure you will pass?’ And I said ‘I think I will pass’. They were shocked that I was confident enough to apply when I still hadn’t finished school,” she laughs. “I was the only one.”

It is this subtle confidence that helped Al Mansoori gain her place among 11 other cadets within Etihad’s programme, which was part of a large recruitment promotional campaign in the Arabic media in Spring 2007. The minimum entry age to become a pilot is 18 years old, and in order to open the cadet pilot programme to as many applicants as possible, Etihad increased the maximum entry age from 24 to 28 years-old.

“It was open to everyone,” Thomas Clarke of Etihad tells me. “Like everything in this country slowly, but surely things do happen.”

Taking to the skies was almost always on the cards for Al Mansoori. Her sister Marianne, 27, graduated from military college and flies a Hawk jet for the UAE armed forces, and her 24-year-old brother Ali, a helicopter pilot, also studied at Horizon.

“It was either this or five years in college,” she says. “This was more fun!”

While she faced no opposition from her family regarding her choice of career, it took a little while longer for Al-Baloushi, 21, to convince her mother of her ambitions.

“I was at my mum’s house when I received a message to say I had got an interview,” she recalls, explaining she’d already applied by the time her father saw Etihad’s advert in the newspaper, thanks to her uncle’s help.

“When I first told my mum I had applied for a job with Etihad, she thought I meant for Etihad magazine. When I told her it was as a cadet pilot, she said ‘are you sure?’ She still thought I meant as an air hostess. When she told the rest of the family I’d applied, they made fun of me,” she giggles.

“They all said ‘Salma, come on make a coffee for me’ and ‘air hostess, make a cup of tea for me’.”

It was all good-natured ribbing though, and when interview day arrived she was all nerves. “I couldn’t sleep all night. I was awake until I came to the interview and did the theory test.”

In contrast to Al Mansoori’s calm composure, Al-Baloushi is animated and chatters with great excitement, but the two women bonded early on after meeting during selection.

“We had to wait for eight months to finally get in and we called each other all time, asking ‘did they call you yet?'” recalls Al-Baloushi, who had been working as a nurse for one year at the time.

“We were waiting and hoping and doing so many tests. We did psych tests, personality tests – all in Arabic and English – sometimes for eight hours a day. It was exhausting.”

Theory aside it was then time for the women to put what they learned into practice. Al Mansoori directs me inside the small Cessna jet in which they train, and which can climb to 6000 feet.

The engine is exposed and looks no bigger than a car engine, and a small fire extinguisher is wedged between the seats.Does it get claustrophobic; I ask looking around the cramped four seater interior? “No,” she replies, “although if there’s a huge instructor sitting next to you, you might feel it.” All Horizon instructors are currently male.

She shows me the autopilot, used in case they need to hover at a certain altitude and so “you can relax like cruise control in a car – except that we’re not allowed to use it.”

I’m talked through the navigation screens, lights, engine communications and flight communications – it all doesn’t look unlike a computer game.

Both front seats have double controls in case the trainer needs to take over in an emergency. It seems a bit like when you learn to drive a car and both front seats have pedals to operate the controls.

Eventually the cadets will learn to fly A320s, but the smaller planes are used to build their confidence before they move onto Etihad’s state-of-the-art A320 simulators to get a feel for what to expect. I ask Al Mansoori if the prospect of flying a 140-seater plane is nerve-racking.

“So far, so good,” she replies, with a smile and a shrug. It all looks pretty simple, but then we are stationary on the ground.

Etihad have four simulators which are all airbuses – three wide bodies (A340s and A330s) and one narrow body (A320), which are phenomenally good at recreating real life situations, says Clarke.

As for the infamous double-decker A380 jets, the airline has ten on order, the first of which will arrive in 2012, so it is conceivable that the women could be flying them by then.

Clarke says cadet selection was based as much on personality as skills considering many applicants were so young.

“The tests helped us work out where extra help was needed. Because guys play video games they’re always better suited, but the women tended to be better at maths or English. Strength of character and determination are often worth more than someone who gets straight As at everything yet is a bit half hearted, though.”

So how did the men on the course act towards the two women? “At ground school there’s a lot of banter,” admits Al Mansoori.

“Some guys are very encouraging, but some say ‘they’re just bringing you for photos’, especially when our pictures were in the newspapers. They were jealous.”

But there’s no battle of the sexes when it comes to celebrating the pinnacle of their training – a cadet pilot’s first solo flight.

Tradition dictates that following this rite of passage, the cadet should, at least, get drenched in water, or pelted with eggs and tomatoes. To her disappointment, Al-Baloushi completed hers during Ramadan: “It was ‘congratulations’, and that was it,” she says, rolling her eyes.

The women currently reside in Etihad accommodation between the airport and Al Ain city which “keeps us in balance, so we can still go to the salon,” says Al Mansoori.

They finish their training at Horizon at the end of April and move onto Etihad’s Training Academy in Abu Dhabi where they will learn to operate the A320 full flight simulator as well as other training in dangerous goods and crew resource management.

After six months they will be qualified as a first officer and will sit alongside the second pilot and captain on Etihad short-haul A320 flights.

So are there obstacles being a female pilot? “No, it’s just a case of who does it better,” says Al-Baloushi. When I ask if being a pilot affects a woman’s place in the Emirati culture, both women say it is not a problem and that their choice of career has, in general, been embraced.

“It is very unusual thing for an Emirati woman to do,” admits Al-Baloushi, who says she was concerned about what people thought initially. But she says she has since received many enquires of how to apply from fellow young women.

“Older people like our grandmothers are so happy, though. They seem much happier than the younger guys, and they encouraged us.”

“I think the young men didn’t like it much, mostly,” adds Al Mansoori. “During assessments they kept questioning us: ‘Are you sure you’re going to be a pilot?’ ‘Do you really think you can do it?’ I answered ‘my sister is a fighter pilot!’ And they said ‘are you kidding?’ That particular guy was applying but didn’t get in.” Enough said.

“It’s just like any other job at the end of the day,” says Clarke. “You work and come home. A lot of Etihad’s network is short haul, like day trips to Beirut and Bahrain, so it’s almost like a 9-5 job.”

Al Mansoori prefers this option. “On short trips you take off and land more. On long haul you just stare at the sky, so it’s boring.” Does she still get butterflies in her stomach when landing? “Always! Every time, you might kill yourself, especially when there’s a cross wind.”

Does the responsibility faze you, I ask. “Every job has responsibilities, it’s just that this job has much bigger ones,” shrugs Al-Baloushi, with a smile.

So do the women feel like pioneers inspiring the current generation of aspiring female pilots? “I’m not really sure,” says Al Mansoori, looking slightly embarrassed. “I try not to think about it and focus on my study.”

Clarke tells me the women have had to turn down television invites so their training priorities don’t get lost in the media frenzy.

And their success story has been far flung – they were guests of honour at last year’s Farnborough International Airshow in the UK (“it made me feel a million bucks,” says Al Mansoori) and Al-Baloushi’s relatives in Pakistan read their story in their local newspaper.

As for the future, Al-Baloushi can’t wait to fly overseas. Al Mansoori says: “I’m just focusing on taking it one step at a time. I want to finish with Horizon and maybe get a diploma in Aviation Management but I’m not sure yet. I don’t need it but I just want it for myself.”

And of ambitions to follow in her army pilot sister’s footsteps: “No way! She had to go to boot camp at military academy and learn shooting as well as push ups, so I wouldn’t bother,” she laughs. Momentarily, I forget that her version of the easy option is piloting a passenger jet. And as I bid farewell, I still can’t believe she is just 19 years old.