This flight engineer's career is ready for takeoff
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Kathryn Hedrick tells Axios she's the Commemorative Air Force's first female flight engineer. Photo: Naheed Rajwani-Dharsi/Axios
Kathryn Hedrick has spent the last few years educating herself and other people about World War II aircraft. The irony: She wasn't even alive for the war — she was born 55 years later.
Why it matters: The nonprofit Commemorative Air Force displays and flies historic military aircraft, educating the public about warplanes.
- "We try to keep airplanes that would most likely otherwise be forgotten still flying. It's kind of our mission to preserve history in a way that we can make it more accessible to people," Hedrick, 25, tells Axios.
Zoom in: Diamond Lil, a 1940s-built B-24, sits outside the Henry B. Tippie National Aviation Education Center at Dallas Executive Airport.
- The aircraft's nose art depicts a woman in a state of undress. The metal inside bears signatures of the women who helped build the aircraft.
- Hedrick is among a group of people who have maintained the plane. She is part of the flight crew, monitoring the engines, making sure the pilots engage the right switches and diagnosing any problems.
- "After my first flight, I actually cried a little bit. I was so grateful for all of the work that I put in and all the work that other people put in to allow me to get to do this," Hedrick says.
The intrigue: Hedrick says her respect for World War II aircraft honors her late grandfather, who fled Poland to escape the Holocaust and built a new life in the U.S.
- "This is the history that's slowly, as we get further and further away from it, slowly being forgotten," she says.
What's next: Hedrick has eight months left until she finishes aircraft mechanic school. She has no plans to abandon her girl, Diamond Lil.
- "She is a good bird," Hedrick says.