Life among the stars

  • Published
  • By Annette Crawford
  • Air Force Print News
When she was an average kid growing up in Elmira, N.Y., Eileen Collins enjoyed simple pastimes. She and her family would drive to the local airport and sit on top of their car, sip root beer, and watch the planes take off and land.

That average kid grew up to have an extraordinary career as an astronaut, flying higher than those planes of her childhood could ever hope to achieve.

The retired Air Force colonel was a keynote speaker at the 17th International Women in Aviation Conference in Nashville, Tenn., March 23 to 25. She was inducted into the organization’s Pioneer Hall of Fame in 1995.

Colonel Collins joined the Air Force in 1978. Just two years earlier, the service had allowed women to enter pilot training.

“Timing was perfect for me, and the opportunities that the Air Force began offering women was something that I really wanted to take advantage of,” she said.

“Nowadays, it’s just expected,” she said of women being military pilots. “But we’re talking back 30 years and it was a very exciting time.”

The colonel and three other women were the first women to attend pilot training at Vance Air Force Base, Okla. She said the base leaders were great about ensuring the quartet didn’t get undue special or negative attention, letting them focus on training.

“I think the challenges for me were very much the same challenges that men have in their careers,” she said.

“I try not to see myself as a woman and someone different. Although that was true and we were in a fishbowl, I tried to focus on the mission, and my mission was to get through pilot training,” Colonel Collins said.

“Once I made it through, I was an instructor and my mission was to teach the students, and that was something I loved to do,” she said. “I wanted to show the guys I worked with I was there because I was well-qualified, and to do that, I was just myself.”

Colonel Collins feels the first generation of military women pilots served well -- well enough to prove that women could then move on to fly bombers and fighters, and she is proud of that accomplishment.

“I loved my years in the Air Force,” she said. “I love the mission. The people I worked with were topnotch. I loved my job and looked forward to it.”

The colonel said she doesn’t think about her role in opening doors for other women.

“I just focus on how much I wanted to do my job and that I’m lucky enough that I found the career that I wanted.”

She said that her first launch into space was a defining moment in her life. The space shuttle mission, known as STS-63, was flown Feb. 3 to 11, 1995, and had several operating problems.

“I remember thinking of all the training that I had done, and on my first launch into space I felt like I was in the simulator again,” she said. “We were so well-trained we were able to react to things as they happened.”

About two minutes after the main engine cutoff, one of her engineers turned to her and said, “Eileen, look out the window.”

“I saw the sun coming up over the horizon and I thought, ‘Wow, the Earth is really round.’ And that’s silly -- of course the Earth is round! I never thought I’d have that kind of reaction, but I did,” she said.

Colonel Collins said her one piece of advice would be to “pick a job that you love.” And even though she didn’t always get the jobs and the bases she wanted, “I wouldn’t change anything.”