By Dianne Derby
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AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colorado (KOAA) — The shelves in Samantha Weeks’ home office are filled with reminders of her 23 years as a fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force. The retired Colonel’s dream to become a fighter pilot started at just six years old. Weeks was on a military refueling tanker known as a KC-135 with her father, an Air Force veteran, and her sister. They were headed back to the U.S. from where her father was stationed in England.
“I can remember seeing icebergs floating in the North Atlantic Ocean…I see a fighter pilot in a fighter aircraft 20 feet below me…and I went to where my dad was sitting, and I was like, ‘Dad, I know what I want to be when I grow up!’ and he goes, ‘You want to be the boomer?’ and I said, ‘No, I want to be that fighter pilot,'” said Weeks. “He literally and figuratively patted me on the back as she looked at me and said, ‘Girls don’t do that.'”
It would be the first of many similar comments, including when she decided she would apply to the U.S. Air Force Academy.
“I remember talking to my eighth-grade guidance counselor and asking for the college catalog from back in the day on the Academy,” Weeks said. “He told me to come back in a few years when I knew what I really wanted to do.”
Determined to go after her dreams, she got in. Weeks graduated from USAFA in 1997 and headed to Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio Texas for a year of pilot training. She then moved to Tyndall Air force base in Panama City Florida to learn how to fly the F-15C.
One day as she was training in the F-15C, Weeks had a full circle moment.
“We have to go to a tanker, and we have to learn how to take gas airborne, and it was a KC 135,” Weeks said. “I am not thinking about it in the moment at all, I’m trying to wiggle my fingers and toes and not hit the gigantic aircraft in front of me, but later that night, I kind of realized my life came full circle, because now I am the fighter pilot going to take gas off of the exact same plane from when I was a six-year-old little kid.”
Her combat experience came early in her career.
“In 2000, I was deployed to Turkey to protect the northern no-fly zone over Iraq in Operation Northern Watch,” said Weeks. “There was a day that I was flying with my flight lead “John Boy” and I looked out my left wing and suddenly saw exactly what the books talked about. It’s just a huge, big black garbage bag kind of explosion in the air. That was the Iraqis shooting surface-to-air munitions at us. It was anti-aircraft artillery. In the moment, I wasn’t like, ‘Oh my gosh, somebody’s shooting at me’ I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s really cool!'”
Weeks said the Air Force was able to retaliate on the location where she saw the muzzle flashes from the ground that day.
“That was a good thing to further protect all of our airmen that were flying over Northern Watch and Southern Watch for well over a decade,” Weeks said.
Six years later, Weeks applied to be part of the Air Force Thunderbird demonstration team. In 2006, she became the team’s first female solo demonstration pilot and performed during the 2007 and 2008 season.
“There’s a great rivalry between the “Diamond” pilots #1, #2, #3 and #4 and the solo pilots #5 and #6 on the team,” said Weeks. “On our coin it says, ‘Thunderbird 5 and 6, loved by millions, hated by four!’ and so there’s just a little good rivalry to what the diamond does at an air show versus what the solos do. The diamond really shows precision. They fly 25 to 30 minutes, 18 inches apart, the entire time with each other. The solos will do a lot more of showcasing the max performance of the F-16 and some of the high G maneuvers that we can do, as well as fly in that precision formation. So there’s just a good little banter as to who’s better.”
Now as a public speaker helping organizations and businesses across the nation, Weeks is hoping to continue to pass on the valuable lessons she’s learned over her more than two-decade-long career.
“I think that we can learn through on-the-job training and doing, but we can also learn from others,” said Weeks. “If there is any part of my stories or my experiences or my mentors and what they’ve instilled in me that I can pass on and share and elevate somebody else, that’s what I want to do in life.”
To learn more about Samantha Weeks and connect with her directly, click here.
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