Flight Lt. Louise

Just this once you won’t see Louise’s face because she’s an “intelligence officer – tactical coordinator” on remotely piloted air systems (drones in other words, or RPASs) in the French Air & Space Force so a bit of discretion is in order.

Louise at her work-station. Photo credit: French Air & Space Force

A young mother of three children, Louise is sparkly and chatty and keen to explain what she does. She works in a team of four people divided into the “fore tranche” and the “aft tranche”. The drone’s pilot (always an officer) and the sensor operator (either an officer on non-commissioned officer) who works the cameras for example, form the “fore tranche”. The tactical coordinator and the image operator, a non-commissioned officer who analyses the photographs and videos under the direction of the tactical coordinator, form the “aft tranche”. The person responsible for the mission is the one who has the highest qualification and rank amongst the four.

When the Reapers are deployed for a mission, the teams go with them. This is one of the major differences between the modus operandi of the U.S. and French air forces because in the former RPAS teams usually work thousands of kilometres from where their aircraft is deployed. In France the teams go with the RPAS whenever it is sent on a mission abroad. "The advantage of being in situ is that it creates an important separation between your professional activities and your personal ones," explains Louise. "When we are on a mission abroad we are in a bubble: we eat, sleep and wake drones, we create relationships with the other operatives who are there and so we can debrief after an operation," she adds. And then "what one sees with one's eyes Is deeply felt in one's heart and so it’s important to be able to debrief with a psychologist after particularly difficult events." It obviously costs the French Air & Space Force more to send its teams abroad than to keep them at home, but Louise explains that "the psychological impact is more important than the financial one." And it's true that French RPAS teams suffer far less from post traumatic stress disorder than their American counterparts who, going home after a long day of combat might get a message "not to forget to get milk on the way home," for example. Which, it turns out, is extremely destabilising.

Louise and her colleagues, on the other hand, when they return from a combat mission, get to spend a few days in France on a non-military site to decompress. "There, we can talk to a doctor if we want, debrief and get mentally prepared to return to a non-combatant lifestyle," she explains. Louise has been an intelligence officer for seven years and a tactical controller for three.

““I knew nothing about aeronautics and I’m not a scientist but there are a few places available in a political science stream at the Academy””

 She is amongst the first to do this job that didn't even exist 12 years ago. But as a child Louise was far from imagining a career in the Air Force. "I had a really strong bond with my grandfather, who was an officer in the Foreign Legion. We would spend long hours riding together, him on his horse and me on my pony." She laughs that "even if I have two brothers, he considered me to be the little soldier of the family!” Also, living in a town that was "very, very military" she "really" wanted to be a soldier. To make sure her decision to join the army was right she undertook a short preparatory course for the navy when she was 18. A smart move because it turned out that "I am a very poor sailor!"

Louise then decided she would sit the version of the exam to get into the St Cyr Army Officer Training Academy for those who already have three years of higher education "as that would allow me to do something else in case I failed." So she first obtained a BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration) at the Paris School of Business, the French branch of a U.S. institution. Except that she hadn’t realised the degree awarded by the school had not yet been approved by France "and so my candidacy for St Cyr was not validated.” Although she was deeply disappointed, she realised that she was still in time to sit the exam for the Air Force Officer’s Training Academy and in the meantime her BBA had been approved by the French authorities. "I knew nothing about aeronautics and I'm not a scientist but there are a few places available in a political science stream at the Academy. The level is the same as to get into Sciences Po Aix [a branch of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, commonly referred to as ‘Sciences Po’]." There was an English exam  (not a problem for her given that her father grew up in South Africa), oral exams, and sports tests. And that's how she found herself at the Air Force Academy training with classmates who had a scientific or mathematical background except that at the end of three years she had a political science degree whilst they had engineering degrees.

"There was a long period of adaptation," she concedes "because I was 22 and the others were 19, on average, and that’s a big gap to bridge." In the class of 80 there were 20 girls of whom three, like her, were in the political science stream. "There were five of us in this stream and the only boy became an air traffic controller. We had a different rhythm to the scientists because we had to write essays whereas they were resolving mathematical problems.”

However, it is the political scientists who dominate the intelligence department. Training lasts for eight months. "I didn’t want to get involved in intelligence, or fighters and even less in Nancy prior to my training. But after spending some time at Fighter Squadron 1/3 Navarre during my training I got involved in all three and have no regrets," she smiles. In 2018, her husband was transferred, so she followed him and has worked with drones ever since.

Louise, who has just started work again after her third maternity leave, recounts that when both people in a couple (her husband was a navigator on Rafale based at Saint Dizier in eastern France) are in the military, adjustments have to be made sometimes in their personal life. "We were married in a civil ceremony in 2015, and in a religious one in 2016 and the day after my religious wedding I was on a plane on my way to an international tactical leadership programme in Spain. I was on my own when I gave birth to our second child because my husband was on a plane flying home, and as we wanted three children we first found out when our next tours abroad were scheduled and welcomed our third baby between two of these tours!!"

Louise stresses that her husband is an "exceptional father, invested 2,000%" and that domestic chores "are largely shared."

She has already qualified as an "autonomous" and "operational" tactical coordinator, and is now aiming for the next two qualifications: "instructor" and "examiner”.

How on earth does she keep score of her two very full lives? "Like a musician,” she laughs. "I’m a Beethoven of modern times!”