page_title: Barbara Allen Rainey
section_title: First female naval aviator
hierarchical_section_title: Barbara Allen Rainey / First female naval aviator
caption_attribution_description: English: Grave of Barbara Allen Rainey at Arlington National Cemetery
context_page_description: Barbara Ann Allen Rainey was one of the first six female pilots in the U.S. armed forces. Rainey received her wings of gold as the first female to be designated a naval aviator in February 1974 and became the first Navy woman to qualify as a jet pilot. She attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy. She was killed in an aircraft crash in 1982 while performing her duties as a flight instructor.
context_section_description: In early 1973, the Secretary of the Navy John W. Warner announced a test program to train female Naval Aviators. Seeking a greater challenge and wanting to follow in the footsteps of her U.S. Marine Corps aviator brother, Bill, Allen applied to the program and was accepted into the U.S. Naval Flight Training School.
  Allen and seven other women reported for flight training on March 2, 1973 at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. She was the first of her class to earn her Wings of Gold and was designated the first female naval aviator in history in ceremonies at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, on February 22, 1974. She was assigned to fly C-1s in Alameda, California with a transport squadron and became the first jet qualified woman in the U.S. Navy flying the T-39.
  Allen married John C. Rainey, whom she had met during her flight training. While pregnant with her first daughter, she transferred to the Naval Reserve in November 1977. She remained active in the Naval Reserves and, while pregnant with her second daughter, qualified to fly the R6D (DC-6).
  In 1981, with the Navy experiencing a shortage of flight instructors, she was accepted for recall to active duty as a flight instructor and was assigned to Training Squadron Three (VT-3) based at Naval Air Station Whiting Field flying the T-34C Mentor. On July 13, 1982, Allen, along with trainee, Ensign Donald Bruce Knowlton, was practicing touch-and-go landings at Middleton Field near Evergreen, Alabama when the aircraft banked sharply, lost altitude, and crashed. Allen and Knowlton were both killed in the crash.
  Uncertainty over the cause of the crash led the pilots' surviving spouses to file a product liability suit against Beech Aircraft Corporation, portions of which would eventually be heard by the United States Supreme Court in Beech Aircraft Corp. v. Rainey.
caption: Grave at Arlington National Cemetery
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