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Dreaming Out Loud: The Life of a Female Test Pilot
by Eileen Nicol

Boeing test pilot Christine Walsh has a smile as wide open as the sky, and she knows how to use it. Dressed in a conservative navy blue pantsuit, with her bubbly personality and cheerful good looks, you might mistake her for the typical girl next door. Yet her flying credentials indicate an unusual level of commitment, skill and confidence. Only five of the 40 test pilots at the Boeing Company are female, and she is one of them.

Test pilots evaluate new and experimental aircraft. Thorough testing requires subjecting the aircraft to very specific maneuvers and noting the results. Commercial, military and experimental planes present different standards and challenges for the test pilot. At Boeing, Christine Walsh has been a test pilot in all three of these aircraft groups.

As long as she can remember, Walsh wanted to be a pilot or an astronaut. After earning a degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder, she found a job at Boeing in payloads, which refers to engineering “everything behind the cockpit door” on military aircraft. In school, her emphasis was on how to best design machines to interface with humans, also called “human factors.” Once employed by Boeing, Walsh began interviewing within the company, seeking to apply her human factors background to flight deck design.

Soon she found a position in flight crew operations, working on the next generation 737 program. “Boeing sent me to a simulator training course for the 737, which is the same course that a normal pilot would go through to train on an aircraft,” Walsh remembers. Not surprisingly, given her childhood aspirations, she fell in love with flying.

Many test pilots come to Boeing from the military or from jobs in commercial aviation, where they have amassed flight hours and experience. Walsh had no such background, but she didn’t let that stop her. She enrolled in flying lessons and within a year was rated as a commercial pilot. A year later she was flight instructing. “I was working full time at Boeing and part time as a flight instructor. It was wearing me down!” She switched to part time at Boeing and full time flight instructing, and confirmed her desire to be a test pilot. “At that point in my career I didn’t have the background I needed. So I left the Boeing Company for two and a half years and flew outside the company.” By the time she was hired back as a co-pilot/systems operator in 1997, she had an Air Transport Pilot (ATP) rating, qualifying her to fly commercial aircraft carrying passengers. In her second Boeing career, she quickly progressed from co-pilot to captain on the 737. “Boeing was a perfect mix for me, because I could work on the design of future aircraft as well as fly airplanes,” says Walsh.

Each type of commercial plane Boeing builds has a set of standards called the production flight test document, developed jointly by Boeing and the FAA. And before being turned over to the customer, every plane coming out of the factory is tested to be sure it meets those standards. This is known as production flight testing, and accomplishing it requires the teamwork of four highly trained people onboard the aircraft and many more on the ground.
Walsh routinely flies captain on the 737, 757, 767 and 777 production flight tests, occupying the left front seat in the cockpit. “Being captain means I’m responsible for the safety of the aircraft, but I still have a very qualified co-pilot in the right seat, or another captain,” she explains. A third team member called the systems operator sits in the cockpit behind the two pilots, carefully monitoring flight instruments and the test plan. A flight analyst rounds out the onboard test crew of four, recording and troubleshooting any problem that comes up from their seat in the passenger area of the plane. On the ground, many engineers, analysts, mechanics, and quality support inspectors are involved in flight test planning and evaluation.

“It really is a team effort,” says Walsh. “It takes all those people to make it a safe and consistent program.”

Walsh’s job is to fly every new airplane as it comes out of the factory. In addition, as chief pilot of the 737 production line, she trains flight crews on new systems being introduced on the aircraft. She attends meetings with the engineers to explore how the new system works and to develop a test plan for it, then brings the information back to the flight test crews.

Communication skills are paramount, she says, and a flight test pilot needs to be fluent in both engineering and aviation-speak. Since she worked on the design of much of the 737 flight deck, she excels at this aspect of her job. Her passion and pride show in her knowledgeable smile as she gestures around the cockpit of the 737. It’s clear that she could not only explain the function of each of the zillion colorful lights, knobs, levers and displays, but also the reason each was placed exactly where it was.

Walsh usually flies three or four times a week, but is always willing to fly more. She recounts one stretch where she flew seven back-to-back days, followed by the required day off, and then flew another straight seven days. Customer demonstration flights comprise another aspect of Walsh’s job. “Once the aircraft has met all the standards, we invite the customer to fly with us,” she says. Here is where her flight instructing experience pays off, as part of the job is to explain the particulars of the plane’s operation to the customer’s pilot. “It’s a wonderful chance to show the company and the area off. They’re always amazed at the change between Eastern and Western Washington, especially if they’re from a small country where they don’t have that type of climate difference.”

Variety appeals to Walsh, too. “We never have two days alike around here,” she laughs. In addition to commercial planes, she crosses over to the military side to fly what are called “test beds” – commercial aircraft modified to test advanced avionics before they are installed on target military aircraft. Engineering (or “experimental”) flight tests, which she also flies, involve subjecting newly developed aircraft to extremes in weather and other variables. Boeing tests its new models at high speeds, low speeds, fully loaded, empty, high altitudes and low altitudes – things the aircraft will probably never experience again.

Finding the right weather conditions can be the biggest challenge of flight testing. “We will actually sit for days waiting for the right wind conditions or the cloud formations or temperatures,” she says. “We fly all over the world.” From Hawaii to Iceland, test pilots must take off at a moment’s notice to the place where meteorologists predict the required weather. “It becomes pretty interesting when you come to work in the morning and call home in the afternoon from Greenland and say it looks like we’ll be spending the night here! I love it.” Of course, such a schedule puts demands on a test pilot’s private life. Walsh is married to an understanding guy, with no children. “But lots of our male pilots and several of our female pilots have children. All of them have fantastic spouses that help them out.”

When asked to comment on whether females face disadvantages in the field, Walsh is adamant. “The airplanes don’t care,” she says. “We’ve had women test pilots at Boeing for a long time.” Boeing hired its first female test pilot in 1985. Christine stresses that women, like men, need the engineering background, the training and the flight experience, “and then they just need to say ‘I want to do that.’” The ability to multitask is critical. “We usually have three or four different people tied into the headsets, plus you’re listening to air traffic control, you’re monitoring cockpit conversations, flying an airplane, navigating and planning for any sort of unexpected findings you might have. Anyone who couldn’t multitask would be weeded out.”

How do foreign customers react to female test pilots? “I pose for lots of photos,” says Walsh, laughing. “I’ve worked for nine years for Boeing as a pilot, and some of the customers will still say, ‘Oh, we get to fly with her! I’ve heard about her!’” Pilots from more traditional male-dominated cultures have provided some of the most heartwarming moments in the cockpit. “They’re not used to addressing women in a work environment. It starts out very quiet.” But as the flight progresses Walsh says they usually come to see how comfortable she is with the airplane and with them, and they come out of their shell. “By the time we get back to Boeing Field I often have their business cards with their daughter’s phone number!” she says.
Christine Walsh has her dream job – flying and engineering - and even being an astronaut no longer holds the appeal it once did. “I do still think about it,” she says. “I still regularly apply to NASA.” But she realizes that starting at NASA would mean spending four or five years training on the ground, and she doesn’t want to give up flying for that long.

What advice does this high achiever have for those of us with our own big dreams? “I think having a goal is the most important part. Pick one, you can always change,” she says. Then broadcast your goal. “You never know whose mom works at that company, or who might know someone that has an airplane who can help you learn to fly. When I first started mentioning that I wanted to be a test pilot for Boeing, I had zero flight hours. It was amazing the people that came forward to help me reach this goal, from everywhere in life.”

All the preparation and long hours that got her here – Walsh makes them sound routine, if not easy. “The advice I always give to children or even adults is, if you’re interested in something, let people know,” she says. “It sounds silly, but if you have a dream, then start asking.”

Eileen Nicol is a writer living on Bainbridge Island and a frequent contributor to Seattle Woman.

©2006 Caliope Publishing Company