F-14 Tomcat Pilot Enjoys Life In The Navy And As A Mother

By Maria Morrison

As part of WomenVenture 2016, Naval Aviator Meagan Flannigan came and spoke about her 14 years of hard work and dedication that helped her become the pilot of an F-14D Tomcat. She talked about the lessons that she learned in accountability and honor that brought her success, both before and after she graduated from the Naval academy in 2002. She also talked about her current passion: raising two daughters with her husband.

Since leaving active duty to take care of her children, Flannigan has stayed fit by exercising six days a week for the past four or five months. Spending time with her daughters, ages four and one, is her favorite thing to do. “Would I like to fly a Hornet right now? Sure,” says Flannigan, “but I would rather pick up my girls and go play with them.”

Flannigan met her husband, one of the first non-pilots she dated, and knew within two dates that she would marry him. “It takes a real man to be married to a fighter pilot,” she said at the WomenVenture lunch. As she was pregnant with her first daughter, she was still finishing her qualifications as a simulator instructor. However, there was “no question in [her] mind” to leave Active Duty within a year of the birth of her first daughter.

Although growing up in a half-military family, Meagan doesn’t think her girls are being raised in an especially strict household. They are taught manners and respect, but those values are due to the lessons taught to Flannigan by her family, not her military training. The girls are told they are both “pretty,” a traditionally female compliment, and “strong,” as their mother was and continues to be as a naval aviator. Meagan’s first daughter “loves to ride her bike and play with trucks and go outside- all while in a princess dress.”

Meagan’s current work as a Defense Contractor has kept her in contact with her old career in the Navy. She made the choice, which is reversible, not to fly in the reserve because it would be difficult to keep up proficiency. “You can’t be rusty every time you fly,” she says. Flannigan believes that if she only flew once every two or three weeks, she would not be as good an instructor as she would be if she flew daily like some of the others.

Meagan remains in the Reserve and, although not having flown for several months, would enjoy purchasing an airplane and teaching her husband to fly in the future. More than anything, though, she wants to spend time with her kids. She is always amazed that “Five years from now, there are 18000 things we could be doing.”

(U..S. Navy image)

FMI: https://www.usna.edu/LeadershipConference/Archive/2013/Panelist%20-%20Flannigan.php