A Woman's Affair

Svetlana Protasova wants to fly MiGs. The Russian Air Force, which has the MiGs, is a conservative, male military institution. It seems to have a little trouble with the idea of a capable, female combat pilot. But, through sheer tenacity and perseverance, Protasova is winning the day.  By Sergei Babichev.

Since her secondary school days, Svetlana Protasova dreamed of just one thing: flying. While she excelled in more traditional studies in music, painting and Russian literature, flying has been her passion. And it has driven her, through great adversity and challenge, to become the world’s only female pilot of the Russian MiG-29 fighter.

Protasova’s first school essay was inspired by a monument dedicated to Soviet pilots who crashed near the town of Yegorievsk (Moscow region), where she went to visit her grandmother. The monument depicts a plane’s wing, buried in the soil. Its inscription is the lyrics from a famous song dedicated to two aviator heroes: “And the friends decided — let’s make it to the forest to save the city.”

By the time Protasova was at university, she had read dozens of books on aviation, many of them at night, under the covers by the light of a small pocket flashlight. She seemed to have a romanticism for flight in her veins and confesses she knew early on that she was “engaged with the sky.”

Sitting over a cup of hot tea in her tiny ‘bachelor’s’ room in the officer’s dormitory, Protasova tries to explain the source of her passion for aviation. “I love flying at the speed of sound,” she smiles. “It is so beautiful. You can see the dark purple sky, the green horizon, and the earth looks like that...” She draws an imaginary line with her palm. Then she pauses to serve some leftovers from the officers’ canteen to her roommate, a sheepdog named Mashka, who settled here after the New Year when someone broke in and stole a brand-new winter flying uniform...

Svetlana’s mother, Valentina Alexeevna, still keeps as a family relic Svetlana’s diary, in which she wrote:”Hurrah! I am flying!” The line dates back to her first parachute jump.

Protasova’s career in aviation began with all the trappings of chauvinism and discrimination that come with breaking down barriers of class, race or sex. Russia’s men in uniform just could not take seriously a woman’s striving to become a combat pilot.

In 1994, upon graduating from aviation school in Zaporozhye (Ukraine), Protasova had trouble finding a job in military aviation. No Russian military commander would take her in his military unit. So, desperate, she wrote first to Russian President Boris Yeltsin and then to Defense Minister Pavel Grachev. The latter referred her to the Commander of Russian Air Forces, Army General Pyotr Deynekin.

With Deynekin’s blessing, Protasova ended up riding what seemed at first glance to be a gravy train — or better said, a gravy plane. She landed at Russia’s most prestigious aviation center, in Kubinka (Moscow region), where foreign military delegations are often taken for an impressive air show. Unfortunately, however, excitement soon turned to bitter disillusionment, as Protasova felt the full force of rank sexual discrimination.

The one thing Protasova was not allowed to do at Kubinka was fly. She was kept busy mopping floors, filling out routine documents and making technical drawings. Her two years spent there were a nightmare. Local fliers regarded her as alien and would not lodge her at the dormitory. (“If we see you here again,” she was told “you’re gonna sleep in the headquarters, on the table.”) So she rented a room in Moscow, which meant getting up at 4:30 a.m. to make the three hour commute to Kubinka. Later, when she bought herself a car, the one way-ride went down to “just” an hour and a quarter. But monthly gas expenses totaled R700,000 ($150) — eating up the bulk of her salary.

Sending Protasova to Kubinka was a bald “advertising trick.” The ‘top-gun’ center is staffed with only Class-1 pilots (needless to say, all men). They are the elite Russian aviators who show their flying prowess at world air shows, dazzling spectators with their air acrobatics. But, back then, Protasova had not even had a chance to qualify for a Class-3 rating.

To obtain a Class-3 rating, one must carry out a certain number of flights under specific conditions — flying at night, flying in daytime in extreme weather conditions, etc. Plus, one must fly in combat conditions — that is jettison bombs and launch missiles on a polygon. Kubinka has no such polygon. The resident, Class-1 pilots have already long since gone through this “routine” and were just honing their high-class flying.

In her two years at Kubinka, Protasova flew only once, as a passenger on a training plane, and specially for photo correspondents. As if that were not enough humiliation, prior to take off, her superiors had strictly warned her not to “touch anything in the cockpit.”

Determined to avoid future ‘Potemkin villages’ and, at the same time,  to not resign from the service — as that would only lead to the “diagnosis” that military flight was “not a woman’s affair,” Protasova spared no effort in seeking a transfer. “I don’t care where I fly, as long as I fly,” she said.

In 1996, Protasova got her transfer, to the flying center in Borisoglebsk (326 km east of Voronezh). While Borisoglebsk does not enjoy the elite status of Kubinka, in Protasova’s mind that was an advantage. At Borisoglebsk she could fly... and prove her qualifications to local commanders.

“That Protasova can fly — this you can’t take from her,” said Colonel Ivan Agafonov, deputy head of the Borisoglebsk center. “And she is dying to fly in combat conditions. Svetlana has just been through complex piloting and she has never been closer to obtaining her Class-3. Of course, it’s very tiring for her. Such a workload was conceived for a strong man, and she is a representative of the “weak sex” [the Russian equivalent of “fairer sex” — Ed.]. Plus she is so skinny.”

Her commander’s back-handed comment is indicative of the mixed feelings Protasova gets from pilots. And a question about how male pilots “regard her” evokes her unequivocal response: “Those who are intelligent don’t begrudge my serving in military aviation,” she said.

Protasova bristles at claims of some that flying is “not a woman’s affair.”

“Not a woman’s affair?” she replies. “What about carrying railway ties? Maybe this is a woman’s affair?” Protasova commonly saw women carrying ties at the plant where she worked as a turner, upon graduating from the Technical Secondary School (PTU). She studied at the PTU when she first failed her exams to enter the top-notch Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI). “Working as a turner is much tougher than flying,” she confessed.

Later, Protasova combined night courses at MAI with her studies at the PTU, finally passing her exams at MAI without attending lectures. After receiving her MAI diploma, she went to the Zaporozhye flying school. In fact, Protasova started her 11-year path to military aviation prior to her work at MAI, by attending DOSAAF (a military organization) sports parachute and flying school.

Interestingly, at regular, annual medical check-ups at the Central Aviation Hospital, after undergoing physical tests well beyond those an aviator has to endure under real flight conditions, Protasova got some encouraging data. Medical examiners at the hospital told the aviator that statistics show that women fail these physical tests less often than men.

“Statistics are quite stubborn,” says Protasova, echoing a familiar Russian phrase. “Only one woman out of ten is unfit for flying, while every fourth man gets the axe from the hospital’s medical commission.”

As if this were not enough to dispel the “not a woman’s affair” myth, Protasova has recently shown that being the only flying center with a high-class female pilot can have its benefits: the arrival of Senior Lieutenant Protasova in Borisoglebsk heralded the opening of a new “era” in the center’s life. Fuel shortages stopped after Protasova complained of same to journalists. Now — in half-serious, half-joking tone — local pilots and commanders urge her to comment to the press on the shortage of batteries and a three-month wage arrears...

For now, Protasova has in mind a request of a less material nature. She intends to ask Army General Pyotr Deynekin for permission to remain at the Borisoglebsk center after graduation, in order to become a Class-1 pilot. Who knows, perhaps then she would receive a more hospitable welcome from her former colleagues at Kubinka... RL

Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Babichev is a correspondent for the daily paper of the Russian military, Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star).