Newest USAF Thunderbird

Samantha Weeks has joined the USAF Thunderbirds military aerial demonstration team.

She graduated from the Air Force Academy with a Bachelor of Science in Biology in 1997 and earned a Master of Arts in Human Relations at the University of Oklahoma in 2005.

As of July 7th, she had 1,025.2 hours in the F-15, including 105.7 hours of combat and combat support time....

Her father was part of an Air Force maintenance crew on a KC-135 and took her along once on an overseas flight when she was six. They let her sit next to the refueling boom operator as they sailed across the ocean and she got to watch as they gassed the fighters.

"I was about 10 feet from the fighter pilot in his aircraft," Weeks reported, "and I thought that was the neatest thing I'd ever seen and I needed to do that when I grew up."

She entered the Academy in 1993, the first year women were allowed to fly fighters.

Thanks to Greg for the link.