In the 45 years since the founding of New China, the People's Air Force has trained more than 600 female pilots, but among the thousands of civil aviation pilots in China, only five are women. Wang Ying, as the youngest of the five "golden flowers" of Civil Aviation of China, is the only woman who flies a large passenger plane.
Wang Ying is a native of Shanghai. At 1.66 meters tall, she is more like a charismatic stewardess than a pilot. She has more than 2,000 hours of safe flying experience. In 1987. When the Air Force recruited 25 female pilots in Shanghai, 18-year-old Wang Ying went to register her parents without her parents, saying: "Lest they worry about me, because the physical examination requirements are very strict, and I am not sure whether I can pass it." She added, "Besides, I was still suffering from a cold and a fever." "Yet she was admitted.
In the following four years, Wang Ying first worked at the Air Force Preparatory School: later underwent intense study and arduous training at the Aviation School. In addition to learning mathematics, physics, aeronautics and flight navigation. Wang Ying also had to practice parachuting. Even though she doesn't like skydiving. And she felt that the most terrible thing was the roller ladder. When watching others practice, Wang Ying was dizzy. When it was her turn, Xiao Wang had to let her classmates tie their hands and feet to the spiral ladder with a backpack strap, gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and turned around on the spiral ladder - another circle.
The experience of navigating for the first time also made Wang Ying unforgettable. During the one-hour and forty-minute voyage, the plane jolted non-stop, and Wang Ying vomited 8 times, "Even the bitter guts were spit out." ", she said." But I finally got the job done. ”
After such a tempering. Wang Ying came to a certain unit of the Beijing Air Force as a qualified navigator. She has done an excellent job and has made a third-class meritorious service. Her unit was streamlined in 1988 due to the reorganization of the Air Force, and she and her husband, Zhang Xiaokuo, a dentist, were demobilized and returned to Shanghai with their 4-month-old son.
As the only demobilized of the fifth batch of female pilots, Wang Yingzhen was not willing to work as a police officer in the Public Security Department of the Shanghai Railway Bureau. She missed the blue sky, the joy of taking off and landing again and again. "It's only a matter of minutes to fly from one place to another, and it's really exciting." She said. "And once you get into the cockpit, you have no distractions." That's not the usual job. It's a magical experience. I can't live without flying. ”
Just then, the goddess of destiny smiled at her again. In 1991, on her way back to Shanghai on a business trip, she learned that the newly formed Shenzhen branch of China Southern Airlines was hiring experienced pilots. Wang Ying resolutely quit her job in Shanghai and came to Shenzhen.
When I got there, I found that what the company desperately needed was a pilot, not a navigator. And what they need is pilots who fly large airliners rather than small military aircraft. What was even more unfavorable was that Wang Ying had been grounded for two years at that time.
however. After a short interview. Yu Yansi, the general manager of China Southern Airlines, decided to hire Wang Ying and spend 200,000 yuan to send her to the Guanghan Civil Aviation Flight College in Sichuan Province for training in flying large passenger aircraft. To this day, Wang Ying can't say how she really impressed Yu Zong. It may be the sincerity of her desire to fly, or it may be that, in her words, China Southern Airlines is really "hungry and hungry". She was worried that she would be rejected as a woman, but at the time "no one mentioned my gender at all."
Although Wang Ying's gender did not affect her to get a job at China Southern Airlines, it could cause a lot of inconvenience at Guanghan Flight Academy. Because she was the first and only female student since the establishment of the school, the academy was unprepared for it. "Not even women's toilets and women's baths," she said. "In the beginning, every time I went to the toilet or took a shower, there was a teacher standing guard at the door." The only way out was success, and she was determined to fly out. She did every subject well and finally got her airliner pilot's certificate six months later.
Today, Wang Ying has flown over the Il-14, Yun-5, An-20, TB-20, LI-2 and Shabo 340 and other aircraft. After eight months as co-pilot on a Boeing 737, Wang Ying was promoted to trainee captain in September 1994. With a record of 1,000 hours of safe flight, she can become an all-weather captain. At that point, she will be able to fly international routes.
(From Wang Dongying, author of Wen Wei Po, Hong Kong, on January 31)