Quick Facts
Biography
Nicola Baumann (born 10 March 1985) became second female fighter pilot in the history of the German Air Force in 2007 flying both Tornado and Eurofighter Typhoon in Luftwaffe.
Life
In 2004, Nicola Baumann, with flying in the family DNA (her mother flew hang gliders, and her younger sister Nena is a pilot with Lufthansa), officially entered the German Air Force, attending the GAF Academy, a one-year school focusing on officer training. She then spent a year in academics to prepare for pilot training set up for 53 weeks at the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program (ENJJPT) at Sheppard Air Force Base and ultimately earned her wings in 2007. At the end of the training cycle, Baumann was assigned to the 322nd Squadron in Bavaria, flying Tornados with Major Ulrike Flender, Germany's first female fighter pilot. Flender graduated pilot training about 10 months ahead of Baumann, also at ENJJPT.
She earned respect to be an instructor pilot at ENJJPT with the 459th Flying Training Squadron in 2012 and completed her flying training as a Eurofighter Typhoon pilot in 2015.
German Female Astronaut candidate
In 2016, Germany was looking for its first woman astronaut. All of eleven Germans who have so far voyaged into outer space were men. As a fighter pilot, Nicola Baumann applied to be Germany's first female astronaut among 86 candidates on the list as of September 2016 and was one of 30 women taking part in the final selection process as of December 2016. She was selected as one of two winners in April and the start of training program will be in mid 2017.
Climbs into her Tornado cockpit
Prepare to fly her Tornado aircraft
Pre-flight briefing at ENJJPT
