First Performance With The Team Scheduled For Next Year

31-year-old Flight Lieutenant Kirsty Moore has become the first female fast-jet pilot in the RAF to qualify for the Red Arrows Aerobatic Demonstration Team, and will begin performing at airshows next year.

"It's an awesome job. To be told I had been selected was one of the best days of my life. It was incredible," Moore said Thursday. "The girl thing is an aside for me because I have been a female all my life and I've been a pilot since joining the RAF."

The BBC Reports that Moore joined the RAF in 1998. She became a Hawk instructor and then Tornado pilot. While he is not the first woman to apply for the Red Arrows, she is the first to be shortlisted and then selected.

The newspaper The West Australian reports that the Red Arrows perform at such events as the Queen's birthday celebration, as well as at airshows around the world.

Moore was tapped from 40 applicants for the position. She credits her father, a retired RAF navigator, for inspiring her to join the service. She holds a masters degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College in London.

"Hopefully in a small way, by me being a Red Arrows pilot, some girls might think that this is something they could be part of and they should go for it," she said.

FMI: www.raf.mod.uk