
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 22, 1995                   TAG: 9501230079
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                 LENGTH: Medium

NAVY ORDERS PAIR OF PILOTS OFF CARRIER

The Navy has ordered two pilots, including the first woman to qualify as a combat pilot on an aircraft carrier, off the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower because of difficulties in landing jet planes on the ship.

Navy officials told The Washington Post that an evaluation board on the carrier had issued the orders. Vice Adm. Richard C. Allen, commander of the Naval Air Force of the Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk, still must approve the orders. However, such orders are virtually always approved.

Lt. Shannon Workman and Lt. Cmdr. Gerald DiLeonardo are members of the EA-6B squadron. The EA-6B is a bulky, twin-engine jet loaded with electronic warfare gear. In a carrier landing, a pilot must bring the plane down in the center of a short stretch of deck to catch one of four cables.

Cmdr. Kevin Wensing, spokesman for the Naval Air Force of the Atlantic Fleet, said Saturday he could neither confirm nor comment directly on the orders, because such orders would be a personnel matter.

Wensing said the standards for male and female pilots appearing before evaluation boards are the same.

``It's very standardized. It's a gender-neutral type of procedure,'' Wensing said. ``Each case is judged on its merits, and safety is the primary consideration.''

There are still 10 female aviators on the Eisenhower, six of them pilots, and all are performing well, Navy officials said. The carrier is in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Navy opened carrier squadrons to women in 1993. In March, the Norfolk-based Eisenhower became the first U.S. combat ship to take women as crew members. Wensing said about 390 women are members of the crew of 5,000.

Navy officials said Workman, 28, of Cumberland, Md., is an exceptional officer and an excellent pilot except for her difficulties with carrier landings. She qualified to fly combat aircraft off Navy ships in February 1994, but Navy sources told the newspaper that senior aviators aboard the Eisenhower thought she had not improved to the point where she did not pose a danger.

by CNB