Midship Laure

Midship Laure. Personal photo.

Laure is the youngest woman I've profiled so far and also the only one whose life was changed by an eye-test! She's just 22 but behind her chatty, easy-going facade there is a very determined character who knows how to go out and get what she wants. And what she wants is to fly patrol aircraft for the French Navy.

“I was absolutely convinced this would be impossible because I wear glasses and there are very few young pilots with glasses,” she tells me, but her flying club instructor pushed her to go to a military hospital in Paris and have her eyes tested. “And that test turned my life upside-down,” she smiles, admitting that she doesn't really understand exactly why she needs glasses as she is neither near nor far-sighted. “Something to do with my eyes working overtime and getting tired,” she explains. But whatever it is, she got the thumbs-up from the medical community to pursue her dream of becoming a pilot.

““It’s really important to have a Plan B””

She'd been planning on going to university and becoming an engineer after passing a scientific baccalaureate and then a Higher National Diploma in aeronautics. But once that plan had been turned on its head, she realised that she lacked confidence to pass the navy selection tests and that her English was not up to scratch. So with a working holiday visa stamped into her passport she set off for New Zealand “where I did all sorts of odd-jobs: grape-picking, dog grooming, housework.” She stayed for seven months and then spent a month each in Australia and Thailand. That experience matured her, giving her the confidence necessary to walk into a navy recruitment centre in summer 2018 where she was selected for the pre-selection course at the EIP 50S Flight Training School at Lanvéoc-Poulmic in Brittany.

“Nobody in my family is in the armed forces and nobody is a pilot,” she tells me over Skype from her sunny garden. She has time to talk because she is on leave until the end of the coronavirus lockdown. “I'm waiting to go down south to [the French Air Force Academy] Salon-de-Provence to begin my six-month aviation course followed by three months on the Cirrus SR20*. I'll then go onto the Air Force piloting school in Cognac to train on the Grob 120** for a year and my final year will be in Avord flying Xingu***.” And then, depending on how well she's performed, she'll get to choose what type of aircraft she wants to fly.

Laure has been preparing for a long time. “I got my aeronautical initiation certificate when I was 15 or 16 and then badgered my parents to allow me to join the Ailes Armoricaines flying club where I got my private pilot's licence and learned to fly gliders,” she laughs. Her instructor at the club was a military pilot and Laure says he was the one who encouraged her to think about becoming a professional pilot... and to get her eyes tested!

She explains that “the pre-selection test whittles numbers right down. There were 12 of us to start with, then 5 after the first day and only three by the end of the week: two boys and me! So it's really important to have a Plan B.” During the pre-selection week the candidates' general aeronautical knowledge is tested and English “which is super-important because if you fail English, you're out!” she stresses. There are interviews with psychologists and with the recruitment team “to determine your real motivations for wanting to join the Navy” and, of course, sports. “I'm averagely sporty,” Laure giggles, “so I'd prepared for this. There was swimming, running, push-ups and pull-ups and abdominal exercises.”

Two months later, in January 2019, she went down to the Mediterranean port of Toulon for the second part of the pre-selection tests which include the simulator test described by Sub-Lieutenant Hélène [previous portrait] in which the candidate must fly the aircraft simulator whilst also remembering images, numbers and doing mental arithmetic. She was the only woman in this flight selection test.

She passed with flying colours but then there was a hiccup. “I'd had a medical problem when I was two or three years old and they said that made me inapt to serve. So I had to put together a complex medical file and finally signed my 10-year renewable [once] contract in September 2019.”

Laure is an officer under contract not a career officer. “That means that I can stop when I'm 32 or renew and carry on until I'm 42,” she says, clearly thinking that this is so far away it doesn't even bear thinking about!! In three years time she will hold the rank of Sub-Lieutenant but will never go beyond Lieutenant...unless she decides to switch and become a career officer.

Midship Laure standing in front of a CAP-10. Personal photo.

* A four-or-five seat aircraft equipped with the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System that deploys to lower the plane safely in case of loss of control, structural failure or a collision. Manufactured by Cirrus Aircraft in Minnesota, it is used by the French Air Force and French Navy and US Air Force as a training aircraft. It is 7.92m long with a wingspan of 11.68m, has a maximum speed of 287 km/h and can fly up to an altitude of 5,300m. First flight was in 1999.

** A single-engine, two-seated training and aerobatic aircraft designed and built by Germany's Grob Aircraft specificially for training military and civilian pilots. The cockpit is big enough to allow trainees to wear military equipment and helmets. It is 8.65m long with a wingspan of 10.19m, has a maximum speed of 319 km/h, a range of 1,540 km and can fly up to an altitude of 5,500m. First flight was in 1999.

*** A twin-engine aircraft built by Brazil's Embraer, the EMB 121 Xingu (pronounce: shingoo) is used to train pilots of multi-engine aircraft so its cockpit has twin commands. It is 12.25m long with a wingspan of 14.45m, has a maximum speed of 426 km/h, a range of 2,352 km and can fly up to an altitude of 6,858m. First flight was in 1976.