Midshipman Plans to Break Carrier Barrier as Jet Pilot : Navy: Kerry Kuykendall is pursuing her childhood dream. She has gotten training aboard an aircraft carrier and is aiming for flight school.

As Rancho Palos Verdes City Councilman Steve Kuykendall helps guide the municipal ship of state, his daughter, Kerry, is studying to become a combat fighter pilot based aboard an aircraft carrier.

Kerry, a 20-year-old midshipman first class, is a student at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. Since childhood she has longed to fly jet fighters and--eventually--become an astronaut. With Defense Secretary Les Aspin’s decision last spring to allow women to fly combat missions, Kerry’s dream moved closer to takeoff.

The possibility had long seemed unlikely. Until this year, the best that female flight school graduates could hope for was to train other fighter pilots. About six years ago, while a sophomore in high school, Kerry wrote a letter to then President George Bush complaining that it was not fair to keep women from flying aircraft in combat. In reply, she received a form letter quoting military policy prohibiting women from engaging in combat roles.

But things change, albeit slower than Mach 1, and today, Kerry finds herself looking down the runway at a full military life.

“My dreams can become reality now,” she says.

Kerry recently completed an eight-week cruise from Florida to California via Cape Horn aboard the aircraft carrier USS Constellation in which she flew helicopters and helped launch aircraft off the flight deck. She was in the first group of about 45 women to be deployed aboard the carrier, which heretofore had been the exclusive domain of 3,500 men.

At home now for summer vacation, Kerry has been reflecting on the decisions that have brought her close to living her dream career, which she hopes will ultimately put her in orbit.

“Since I was in junior high I’ve wanted to be an astronaut,” she said, adding that her interest was sparked when she saw the movie “The Right Stuff” in a seventh-grade science class.

By the end of her sophomore year at Phillips Exeter Academy, a prep school in Exeter, N.H., Kerry had decided to apply for an appointment to one of the military academies. Her effort proved successful: She was appointed to the Naval Academy by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach).

After she graduates next May, Kerry hopes to be admitted to flight school, a two-year program, to learn to fly “really fast” jets, like the FA-18 or the F-14. From there, she would like to go to test-pilot school and then on to NASA for astronaut training.

Aboard the aircraft carrier, Kerry and her female comrades were made to feel welcome by the officers, but she says the contingent got a lot of “looks” from enlisted men who had not before worked with women.

“I ran into a couple (of sailors at the laundry) and none of them would talk to me. They were afraid of the sexual harassment stuff,” she said. “Finally, one said something and then a group of eight or so gathered around to talk. They said they weren’t sure what to think of us.”

The women slept in several rooms sectioned off from the men’s berthing. That they were segregated from the men’s quarters did not bother Kerry. “It really didn’t bother me too much. We were all together the rest of the time,” she said.

While aboard the ship, Kerry was assigned to a “running mate,” an officer whom she shadowed, learning his job and doing what he did. He was in charge of the catapults and the arresting gear, which respectively help launch aircraft on takeoff and catch them on landing.

“Shooting (launching) is the most exciting,” she said. “You’re so close--10 feet from the aircraft. It’s spring-loaded. It’s noisy. The jet whizzes past. Steam comes up from the catapult.”

A major topic of discussion during off-hours on the aircraft carrier was President Clinton’s recent “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” policy on gays in the military.

“Most of the male midshipmen I’ve talked to don’t think gays should be in the military,” Kerry said. “They think they’ll get in the way of the job. I personally don’t think the military is ready for it, but I feel the compromise is a good place to start. In talking to other women in the military, gays don’t seem to be as big an issue for us. We’ve had to work around men.”

At home now with her parents and two younger brothers, Kerry talks about the future and her mother, Jan, cringes.

“I’m traditional,” Jan said. “As a mother, I’m happy for her, but as a mother, I worry. It’s the danger. I think about her as a little baby, and this wasn’t something I envisioned for her. I also realize what a tough life she’s chosen . . . The military is difficult. There will be some people who give her a tough time.”

Kerry’s father, a former Marine, worries too. But for the most part, he says, he is envious. “I enjoy the ability I have to reminisce through her about things” in the military, he said.

The councilman says he also admires his daughter for playing a groundbreaking role.

“She’s a very strong, capable young woman and will probably flourish in that environment,” he said. “She doesn’t at all come across to me as a pioneer in the field, but she is. She is literally coming into this pipeline as they are filling it up.”