First Female Fighter Pilot Commander of 80th FTW celebrates final flight retirement at Sheppard AFB

Col. Andrea Themely, commander of the 80th Flying Training Wing at Sheppard Air Force Base, took her final flight as an Air Force Pilot. As is customary, she was hosed down by family and friends after the "Fini Flight".
Sweet sendoff for 80th FTW commander’s final flight at Sheppard AFB:
In a bittersweet sendoff, Col. Andrea Themely, commander of the 80th Flying Training Wing, completed her final flight in an Air Force craft Monday morning. Themely is retiring from the Air Force after 23 years of service. From a young age, she said, it was her dream to be up in the air. At first, she recalls telling her mother that she wanted to be a flight attendant because she did not think girls could be pilots. “Oh yes they can,” Themely recalled her mother telling her. “So, she talked me into that direction and I was really fascinated by flight and aircraft,” she said. She went to the Air Force Academy and was commissioned into the Air Force in 1995. Themely said she was lucky enough to fly fighters – just like she always wanted. She was at Sheppard previously as an instructor pilot from 2009 through 2014, when she was also the 80th FTW's first female squadron commander. After a time at the Pentagon and going through National War College, Themely said she felt grateful and blessed to be able to come back to Sheppard and lead the amazing organization of the 80th FTW. As commander of the 80th FTW, Themely was in charge of the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program – the world’s only multi-nationally manned and managed graduate training program chartered to produce pilots for the NATO alliance. “It’s a fighter-centric training program, so our goal is to produce fighter-qualified pilots at the end of the 55 weeks that they go through training here,” Themely said.
There are about 1,500 people from 14 NATO nations that participate in the program. “It’s a really amazing opportunity for everybody to network and be able to strengthen those alliances and those partnerships between the nations as well as produce combat pilots for those nations,” she said. Themely took command in May 2017 and, with the help of the Wichita Falls community, said Sheppard Air Force Base achieved some important long-term objectives. Some of the top priorities during her time at Sheppard were recovering from the pilot shortfall that was affecting the entire Air Force; combating wind farm encroachment and bringing the T-X craft to SAFB.
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