Meet Our Very Own Oryx Top Guns

Yesterday, three women of the South African Air Force made history when they became the first women-only crew of a helicopter flight.

The flight by pilot Captain Tarryn Bind, co-pilot Captain Laura Ilunga and flight engineer Lieutenant Olwethu Soga, of 15 Squadron, was a first in the 91-year history of the second-oldest air force in the world.

The trio were proud and particularly pleased the event had taken place in time for Women’s Day and in Women’s Month.  The Oryx flight took off from Durban’s air force base, near the old Durban International airport, and made a 30-minute circuit of Durban. The air force’s theme for yesterday was: “Strong women building a strong SAAF in defence and service of the nation”.

Bind, 27, originally from Joburg, is the first woman to qualify as an Oryx commander at 15 Squadron; she is only the second woman to achieve this in SAAF history.“We are all professionals and we were excited. It was really quite nice having ladies only in the helicopter,” she said of yesterday’s flight. It’s a far cry from her childhood dream of being a flight attendant and another step towards her dream of becoming an astronaut.

Ilunga, 26, described being part of history as “overdue but great”. She joined the SAAF in 2004 as a pupil pilot and completed the gruelling basic training and officer courses. She then studied at the military academy and got her BMil: Defence and Technology Management through Stellenbosch University, majoring in aeronautical science. She got her wings at the central flying school, Langebaanweg, in 2007. She said: “We need more women in the air force,” adding that she was part of an NGO, Southern Africa Women in Aviation and Aerospace Industry, which aimed to get bursaries for young women who wanted to be in the force.

Soga, 28, of Butterworth, in the Eastern Cape, qualified in 2008 as the first and only woman flight engineer in the SAAF. Last year she qualified to take leadership as 16 Squadron technical officer – the person in charge of all technical aspects of running the squadron. Her flying tasks have included night flying, mountain flying, formation flying, night specialist operations, sea rescues, mountain rescues, casualty evacuation, gunnery war simulation exercises, and firefighting and cargo-slinging.