More than a pilot: behind the scenes

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Daniel Phelps
  • 20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. (ACCNS) --  Editor's note: This is part 2 of a 3 part series about female fighter pilots and their various roles.

Capt. Betsy Hand, an F-16 pilot, dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot ever since she saw the Thunderbirds fly at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. when she was 9 years old.

From that time she began preparing for the Air Force. She wore combat boots while mowing the lawn, took college prep classes and Junior ROTC in high school.

She went to the Air Force Academy, graduated and finally earned her wings.

Then, she was greeted with a surprise: being a pilot came with a second job.

Currently, Hand is a 20th Operations Group standardization and evaluation liaison officer and an F-16 pilot attached to the 77th Fighter Squadron.

As the 20th OG standardization and evaluation liaison officer, she oversees 21 different programs and the processes that keep 20th Fighter Wing pilots flight evaluation folders current so they can legally fly.

Hand never realized that having a second job would be part of being a pilot, she said. When it was given to her, she accepted it as part of the job and ran with it, asking questions and trying to learn it to the best of her ability.

Throughout her career as a pilot, Hand has had several different secondary jobs.  When new pilots come in, they are not assigned additional jobs right away. Their primary focus at that time is to learn the mission.

After the new pilots have learned the mission, they are assigned jobs inside the squadron. The more experienced pilots are tasked to group positions or other areas.

Her first job was the squadron scheduler, where she scheduled flights and simluators and helped keep the pilots required currencies up-to-date. During this time, Hand also learned how the pilots work with the maintainers.

"It wasn't a fun job," she said. "There was almost always someone who was unhappy with the schedule for one reason or another."

After being a squadron scheduler, she became the chief of training for her squadron. She had to ensure all upgrade training was taken care of in proper order by following the syllabus.

Hand's next job was chief of flight safety for the wing. To take on this job she had to go through a flight safety course in Albuquerque, N.M. One of her responsibilities was to write up reports for all safety infringements, the reason they happened, what was done and how they could be avoided in the future.

Her next challenge was the director for the wing staff agencies, which was generally a lieutenant colonel position, but she held it as a captain. She was responsible for all the administrative issues, officer performance reports and enlisted performance reports for the wing staff agencies. Hand also had the opportunity to interact with all of the different groups.

"It was a very busy job but a very cool experience," she said.

Then, she was a flight commander for her squadron, taking responsibility for nine other pilots.

Balancing being a pilot and the second job is a time-management challenge, Hand said. She often has to work long hours and occasionally come in on the weekend.

"There have been times where I've put in 16-hour days," she said. "You want to fly, but that other job is squawking at you."

Hand explained the reason pilots are tasked with second jobs is because the squadron needs to continue running and there aren't enough people as is to keep it up.

"It's important to have people with flying experience doing these jobs because they understand what pilots go through and can advocate for them," she pointed out.

Hand tries to work in the 20th OG office once or twice a week and have the rest of the time set aside for flying.

"Unfortunately, that doesn't work out about 90 percent of the time," Hand commented while laughing.

Many people are surprised to hear that pilots have jobs outside of being a pilot, Hand pointed out. Thus, they don't realize how long our days are.

"People will come in for incentive flights and be with us for our 10-hour days," she continued. "After the flight they'll be completely exhausted. They don't understand how we're able to put in another two to four more hours of work afterwards."

Hand said that if she had known about having an additional job that required so much time outside of flying, it wouldn't have deterred her decision to become a pilot.

"The best part of my day is stepping out to the jet and being able to forget about all of those taskings and suspenses," she exclaimed. "It's all worth it just to be able to fly."