‘Flying brought me the greatest joy. It was always and ever beautiful and serene. It was a constant reminder of how small we truly are, and how infinitely wide and vast the universe is.’

“It’s hard to accurately put into words, but I know for me nothing in this world will ever come close.”

These are the words of Li Rossouw, one of the Namibian female pilots who took up the challenge of venturing into what was the previously male-dominated aviation industry.

Describing the universe, Rossouw said: “Flying taught me that there was no limit in the sky, in fact, there is no limit.”

The young, energetic and committed Rossouw decided to become a pilot one day at the age of 12.

In an interview with Nampa, Rossouw stated that she wanted to do a different thing from other careers that people “made us to believe that we should do, and careers that people were saying are ok”.

“I always want to stay away from the norm, and do something that is challenging every day,” she narrated her journey into the aviation industry.

Discipline is the only word in her mouth, as she emphasised that carrying the lives of people need a disciplined and focused person.

“No two days are ever the same, no two flights are ever the same,” she narrated, and discipline is a must as piloting is an unsupervised educational journey, where there are no lecturers.

The piloting is a job of Monday to Monday, it is a dual thing, which includes theory and flying on a daily basis.

“You need to master both because the one feeds the other. You really need to be committed to your time and energy to make it a success. And because it is expensive, if you don’t work hard it will become more expensive,” she stated.

One of the highlights of her piloting journey is when she flew solo.

“It was exciting but a bit worrisome, thinking that these people trusted me to fly all alone. It was fun. I was never scared,” the excited-looking Rossouw described her first solo flying experience.

To the girls who want to be pilots, she said, just do it, and never let your gender be the limitation of what you want to do.

“I think girls make better pilots than boys because girls are more detail oriented. We pick up little things faster than men,” said the 30-year-old.

Rossouw was born in Windhoek. She matriculated at St George’s College. She started her Private Pilot’s Licence in 2011 at FTC in George, South Africa. She completed her Commercial Pilot’s Licence at 43 Air School in 2014.

Shortly, thereafter, she was a jump pilot at Skydive Namibia, dropping skydivers.

She joined Air Namibia in 2016, on the domestic fleet, flying the Embraer 135.

“In 2019 I joined the regional fleet, flying the Airbus A319 until the national airline was liquidated in 2021,” she said.

This agency also chatted with Georgette Mieze who is a helicopter pilot for the Namibian Police. At the time she was ready to fly NamPol’s helicopter for her day-to-day crime patrol around Windhoek.

She expressed that the man-dominated piloting industry is becoming a thing of the past.

Although there is still some stereotyping from a section of the community who do not want to be flown by female pilots, she said the discrimination is dying a natural death and the industry now is open to everyone.

“With all dedication and hard work, anything is possible. We can achieve what our male counterparts can achieve equally,” she said.

She warned the young ones who want to be pilots that they have to be disciplined, especially when it comes to social life, saying there are strict rules that they have to adhere to.

Mieze singled out the hours the pilot needs to rest which must be fully adhered to.

“You have to be disciplined and focused,” she reiterated.

Born in Windhoek and raised in Otjihere village in Otjinene Constituency, Mieze joined the police force in 2010 after she matriculated at Wennie du Plessis in Gobabis.

In 2012, she was nominated to undergo pilot training in Mossel Bay, in South Africa.

At the time, she was the only female student at that training institution.

In 2017, she became a captain and got promoted in 2021 as Deputy Commissioner and Head of Crew Training Management.

“This is an achievement to me during my piloting journey. My journey is not strange, and I have enjoyed it to the fullest so far,” she said confidently.

Currently, Namibia has 2 200 pilots and out of that number 110 are female pilots. It also has 13 female engineers and 30 female traffic controllers.

In the next five years, the country might mark 250 to 300 female pilots, Namibia Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) Acting Senior Manager of Personnel Licensing, Rodney Theron told this agency.

Currently, the Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF) is funding 80 students who are being trained as pilots and 20 of them are females.

Theron encouraged young girls to take up that opportunity as now the playing field is levelled.

There is no more man-dominated aviation industry, he said, adding that the NCAA on an annual basis also offers bursaries to students who want to become traffic controllers.

“There is no discrimination in terms of gender,” he said.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency