Earning my Wings: A Mormon Woman's Journey to Marine Corps Aviator

I wrote this book primarily for my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great grandchildren, great-great-great… well, you get my drift.

Having not yet completed my service to the United States Marine Corps, I thought it would be a bit presumptuous to pen my memoirs. That said, my family and friends have always enjoyed hearing my flight stories. So, I dug out some of my old journals and decided that I’d give an accounting of my flight school adventures.

This is by no means representative of everyone’s time in Naval Flight School—this was just my personal experience and point of view on things.

So, if you’d like to find out how a Utah girl who’d never given any thought to becoming a pilot before, much less touched the controls of the plane, ended up earning her wings of gold, read on.

Semper Fly,
Janine K. Spendlove

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
From my journal, dated 3 March 2002

On Monday something crazy happened. We were flying our Form Solo. I was “lead” so I named our flight “Vader” flight, cool eh? So anyway I was flying us out to the area (2F) & as soon as I leveled us off @ 6500ft I noticed my oil pressure was dropping. This is bad because if it drops too low your propeller will feather & your plane becomes a glider—basically your engine is worthless.

I stayed calm & let my flight instructor know about my problem. The instructor in the chase plane sent my wing home & followed me down & made my radio calls for me while I executed my emergency landing at Brewton field. My landing was ugly—but I was nervous. I didn’t break anything & I’m alive. ☺