Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Gabriela Machuca Castillo - El Comercio
Translation: Vanessa Castro Chesterton - Living in Peru

Nemesis, Greek goddess of vengeance, is the name Lieutenant Zarate Degolla has chosen to be called while she is in the air.

Officers at La Joya Air Base, the great battle unit stationed in the middle of the Arequipa dessert admire the ease with which FAP Lieutenant Liliana Zarate Degolla lands a MB 339 over a landing strip. Watching her and dressed in a green jumpsuit is FAP Colonel Carlos Enrique Chavez, Air Force Group 4 commander, “She sure is taking care of the wheels on her new plane”, he says.

Though it may not actually belong to her lieutenant Zarate can say that the million dollar piece of machinery manufactured in Italy is hers. And to a certain extent it is true since the Air Macchi has been assigned to her for a few months as she has become the first woman to fly a fighter pilot in the history of Peruvian aviation.

This feat marks an important mile stone for the Peruvian Air Force; it happened eight days ago in La Joya when the young Limenian flew the Air Macchi solo in what was the final test in the advanced course she was taking. She passed along with six other Peruvian Air Force pilots. With another victory in her military career she has managed to live out the dream of many men and women: that of having total control of the sky.

The plane has finally stopped moving. Zarate has been casting quick and superb shadows across the Arequipenian sand for the past 54 minutes. Slowly she lifts the hatch and removes her mask. Her hair is a mess; her cheeks are red and her face is marked by the mask. She hands over the reports of her flight to her mechanic, FAP Senior Non-commissioned Officer Maria del Carmen Churapa, who later tells how she feels a certain kinship with Zarate, though she works just as well with the other pilots, there is something special with the Lieutenant. “Female complicity”, she says. As this goes on Zarate becomes aware of the camera and tries to subtly fix her reddish hair back into a neat ponytail.  She then covers it with a cap which sports the logo of the institution she has worked for for nearly 11 years, ever since she first entered the FAP School of Officers in 1999

Lieutenant Zarate does not remember having wanted to be a pilot as a girl, although she has always had a tie to the Air Force. He father was a technician and studied at the FAP Manuel Polo Jimenez School. “I realized this was my calling once I was in the School of Officers. My confidence then grew as my military career developed”, explains Zarate.

Her disposition and character become evident in the way she speaks and carries herself and it must be this which has led her to be the only woman to fly Zlin and Tucano fighter planes; to have 230 hours of flight time; to have some of the highest grades in her class; to deal with military officers of the opposite sex all day, every day.

Two of her class mate, lieutenants Emerson Gomez Quintanilla and Donovan Ortega Diez say her courage is such that it makes others treat her like any other of her peers and that everyone in the Air Force listens to her. That is why they did not hesitate to cover her in champagne like everybody else on February 22nd when she descended from the Macchi after governing the skies.

FAP Colonel Chavez Cateriano has no doubts that the 26 year old has a promising future and if she continues on the path she is going on now she will fulfill her dream of flying a Mirage M2000 in less than 10 years.

- Lieutenant, what are you afraid of?
- (thinks for a while) I don’t think I’m afraid of anything… well there is one thing, losing.

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