Possible Rules Change in the Military : Denmark May Let Women Pilot Its Jets

Katrine Hvitved, a 16-year-old high school student, wrote an irate letter to a newspaper complaining that the Danish air force discriminates against women and keeps her from fulfilling her dream of flying an F-16 jet fighter.

“I would like to be a pilot but can’t be one in the military,” she wrote to the newspaper Jyllands-Posten. “It’s unjust!”

Two weeks later, Defense Minister Bernt Collet replied to Katrine in a letter to the same newspaper saying an air force policy of keeping women from piloting military planes is under review and likely to change.

Women are accepted in Denmark’s armed forces, but they cannot fly planes.

Delight With Response

Hvitved, who specializes in science and mathematics at school, said by telephone from her home in the port city of Aalborg that she was delighted with Collet’s response.

“I’ve been crazy about jet planes for years and enjoy visiting air force bases,” she said.

But she added that she still has a problem.

“My parents would rather I stayed on the ground,” she said.

Nevertheless, she’s decided to join a parachutist’s club.

Study of Women Pilots

Last year the military began a study of women pilots in other nations’ armed forces. Based mainly on the experiences of other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries, the report is expected to be submitted to a parliamentary committee for action later this year.

“The military chiefs seem to be very positive toward the proposal,” said Maj. Benny Hansen of the air force, the Defense Ministry official who deals with personnel.

A decision to allow women into flight training would be in keeping with military policy laid down in 1980 of equal rights in all branches of the armed forces, Hansen added.

Experiments since 1980 placing women in combat units have proved successful, Hansen said.

No ‘Weakening of Strength’

“The military hasn’t noticed any weakening of fighting strength in combat units with women in them.”

A total of 844 women, including 58 officers, were serving in all armed forces branches as of June last year, the date of the latest available statistics. They were in field units in the infantry, the tank corps, surface-to-air missile squadrons and base patrol duties.

The navy has five women officers and 99 sailors. They serve on inspection vessels, corvettes and torpedo boats. But they aren’t on submarines, where quarters are too close.

Hansen said he sees no problems with women as pilots of helicopters or transport planes. But experts are still concerned about how women would stand up to the extreme gravitational forces experienced by pilots of supersonic jets.

Trained in U.S.

G-stress and reaction time were problems for male fighter pilots too, Hansen said.

In Denmark, aspiring combat pilots go to a 2-year civilian flight school supervised by the military before being sent to United States for advanced training.

“Female pilot trainees will face the same physical and psychological demands that men do, and there will be no lowering of standards to get women in,” Hansen said.

Nor would a woman’s marital status or the fact she had children be taken into account, he added.

Hansen pointed out that in neighboring Norway, where women already train as military pilots, only two of 300 candidates have earned wings.

The Netherlands, Canada and United States also have trained women pilots for their air forces.