The First Female Combat Pilot
SABIHA GÖKÇEN

Atatürk attached great importance to aviation and for that purpose oversaw the foundation of the Turkish Aeronautical Association in 1925. He took Gökçen along with him to the opening ceremony of Türkkuşu (Turkish Bird) Flight School on 5 May 1935. During the airshow of gliders and parachutists invited from foreign countries, she got very excited. As Atatürk asked her whether she would also want to become a skydiver, she nodded, "yes indeed, I am ready right now".

Atatürk instructed Fuat Bulca, the head of the school, to enroll her as the first female trainee. She was meant to become a skydiver, but she was much more interested in flying, so she earned her pilot's licence. Gökçen, together with seven male students, was sent to Crimea, Soviet Union for an advanced course in glider and powered aircraft piloting. However, when she was in Moscow, she learned the news that her sister Zehra had died, and with collapsed morale, she immediately returned to Turkey, isolating herself from social activities for some time. After a while, at Atatürk's insistence, Gökçen began working again.

At Eskişehir Aviation School, she received special flight training from Savmi Uçan and Muhittin Bey. She began flying a motorized aircraft for the first time on February 25, 1936. As girls were not being accepted by the Turkish War Academies in those years, Gökçen was provided, on Atatürk's orders, with a personalized uniform, and attended a special education programme of eleven months at the Tayyare Mektebi (Aviation School) in Eskişehir in the academic year 1936-1937.

After receiving her flight patents (diploma) she trained to become a war pilot at the 1st Airplane Regiment in Eskişehir for six months. She improved her skills by flying bomber and fighter planes at the 1st Aircraft Regiment in Eskişehir Airbase and gained experience after participating in the Aegean and Thrace exercises in 1937. In that same year, she took part in military operations during the Dersim rebellion and became the first Turkish female air force combat pilot. Turkish planes flew numerous sorties against the rebels during the rebellion. A report of the General Staff mentioned the "serious damage" that had been caused by her 50 kg bomb upon a group of rebels. Nuri Dersimi claimed that the Turkish air force bombed the district with poisonous gas in 1938.

In 1938, she carried out a five-day flight around the Balkan countries to great acclaim. In the same year, she was appointed chief trainer of the Türkkuşu Flight School of the Turkish Aeronautical Association, where she served until 1954 as a flight instructor and became a member of the association's executive board. She trained four female aviators: Edibe Subaşı, Yıldız Uçman, Sahavet Karapas and Nezihe Viranyalı. Gökçen flew around the world for a period of 28 years until 1964. Her book entitled A Life Along the Path of Atatürk was published in 1981 by the Turkish Aeronautical Association to commemorate Atatürk's 100th birthday.

Gökçen flew 8,000 hours and 22 different types of aircrafts during her career. Of those, 32 hours were spent in combat flights. In her honour, Istanbul's second international airport was named Sabiha Gökçen International Airport in 2001. Her love for planes never died. She flew her last flight at the age of 83 in a Falcon 2000 aircraft accompanied by a French pilot before she passed away at 88.