Call Sign Revlon: The Life and Death of Navy Fighter Pilot Kara Hultgreen [Hardcover]

Sally Spears (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1998

Lt. Kara Hultgreen was just twenty-nine and the U.S. Navy's first fully qualified female fleet fighter pilot when her Tomcat slammed into the Pacific Ocean in October 1994. Her death was not only a tragic loss to her family but a serious blow to a navy struggling to redefine the role of women in its ranks. The image of this beautiful and vibrant young woman with her fierce warplane -- plastered across the front pages of newspapers around the world after the crash -- provoked strong emotions and gave new life to the controversy. Written by Kara's mother, Sally Spears, the book goes behind the headlines to tell the story of a remarkable woman who made history. Spears presents Kara's shortcomings along with her strengths -- the ups and downs in her personal life along with her professional career. She draws freely from Kara's journals, kept from the time Kara entered the navy, and from extensive interviews with her daughter's friends and peers as well as some of her commanding officers. From the athletic teenager who dreamed of becoming an astronaut to her pursuit of that dream earning a degree in aerospace engineering and joining the navy, this book chronicles Kara's efforts to become a navy pilot. It demonstrates how her outspokenness sometimes created problems in an environment hostile to women and how her sense of humor allowed her to cope. It describes how her ambition to fly combat aircraft collided with the customs of the navy, the mores of society -- and, until the repeal of the combat exclusion rules in 1991, with the laws of the United States.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In October 1994 Navy Lt. Kara Hultgreen died when her F-14 fighter jet crashed into the ocean during an attempt to land aboard an aircraft carrier. As the first woman to fly the high-powered Tomcat in a fighter squadron, Hultgreen was already a visible figure in the debate over whether women should serve in combat, and her death only intensified that debate. After her crash, sources within the Navy released documents to show that Hultgreen was an unqualified pilot who got through training because she was a woman. Hultgreen's supporters countered that the documents were incomplete and grossly misleading. Four years after the tragic mishap, Hultgreen's mother, a member of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, presents this work not as a tool of persuasion, but as the biography of a young pioneer. In many ways, it is a deeply engaging portrait. Drawing extensively from her daughter's letters and diaries, Spears shows the intense motivation and high energy of a young woman whose life was geared toward her childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. A swaggering hell-raiser with a wicked sense of humor, Hultgreen pummeled her drunken assailant when groped at Tailhook. But Spears also includes considerable fluff: one chapter titled "Pamela" seems designed to settle a score with a friend who inexplicably dropped Hultgreen when her career declined. Ultimately, the most interesting chapters are those addressing the question of whether Hultgreen was truly qualified to be flying the F-14. With more substantive reporting, Spear might have offered a persuasive case on her daughter's behalf. 29 illustrations.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Eyebrows skeptically raised at the prospect of a biography of the late navy pilot Kara Hultgreen written by her mother will quickly lower as their possessors read this absorbing, powerful, occasionally infuriating book. Spears is honest about her role in the breakup of her own marriage, which, together with her access to her daughter's personal correspondence, inspires trust in her efforts to humanize Lieutenant Hultgreen, which nearly all of the media coverage of her fatal accident failed to do. Hultgreen emerges as assertive, competitive, and even aggressive, with above-average flying competence that, however, could not overcome a perennial and lethal technical problem in the F-14A she was flying. In short, she possessed a classic fighter pilot's personality, which military and militant misogynists would have us believe was misplaced in a woman's body. The book finally conjures the feeling that Hultgreen's death was the loss of a good officer, a lady, and a superior person. Thanks to Spears for writing and to Naval Institute for publishing this unequivocally pro-woman book. Roland Green

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557508097
• ISBN-13: 978-1557508096
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,219,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Kara, simply, made a mistake!, December 2, 2000

By 

Jack Doub (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Call Sign Revlon: The Life and Death of Navy Fighter Pilot Kara Hultgreen (Hardcover)

As a former fighter-pilot and, later, commercial pilot, there can be no doubt the Navy rushed Kara into the fleet with special treatment. I have reviewed the video tape of her unfortunate accident, and that's what it was... an accident, over and over and the conclusion remains the same: she overshot the turn to final, tightened her turn too much in an attempt to get lined up properly, and compressor stalled one of her engines due to the high angle of attack she achieved in her desperate, fatal attempt to tighten the turn! Most pilots have done it; I certainly have... many times, but, the answer is to roll wings level while adding full power, and go around for another pattern. The experienced pilot will swallow his or her pride and go-around to live for another day; the inexperienced or inept pilot will foolishly continue to pull the jet tighter, eventually achieving the same result Kara experienced that bleak day. It was an accident, granted, a pilot error accident, but an accident nonetheless. They happen all the time in the fighter business. It's a dangerous game, with little room for error. Kara made a mistake. Despite her parents' understandable attempts to prove the F-14A flawed, it remains... a regrettable accident.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Difficulty In Doing It Is Why It Is Good!, February 19, 2001

By 

Tom Kaletta (St. Louis, Missouri USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Call Sign Revlon: The Life and Death of Navy Fighter Pilot Kara Hultgreen (Hardcover)

If I could have chosen a life for myself that would have been ideal, it would have been as the driver of pointy nosed jets with after-burners that fly off of ships at sea. I am 53 years old now so being able to fulfill that dream will have to wait until my next life. I never lost interest, though, and that's what made me turn my head when Kara Hultgreen started to make her mark in the early 1990's in the Navy.

I knew then that she was probably meeting with more than just a little antagonism. Being a woman in the military can be challenging enough. Being a woman who flies jets can meet with even more atagonistic attitudes and being a women who wants to fly jets from carriers...well, you probably get the idea.

I cannot and would not ever be willing or able to argue any point related to Kara's ability to fly carrier based jets successfully. My experience and knowledge eliminates that as a possibility. Some pretty experienced folks in the U.S. Navy must have thought Kara was pretty good or she never would have gotten as far as she most certainly got with it all. I will never believe that all these folks involved would have buckled to what pressure detractors say might have been applied, if she had not been what she needed to be.

I have to believe in the Navy's judgement and I would have a difficult time really believing that any truly untalented pilot could get thru the system, regardless of gender or politics, if they didn't have what it really takes. If the claims that Kara's training was accelerated because of her gender are true for any reason, that cannot take away from the fact that she was undoubtedly confident and good at what she did and she went thru some real struggle and up hill battles to follow her dream.That is what this is all about...it is about Kara's dream.

I think that Sally Spears' work and effort to write this book about her daughter is marvelous. If a reader has trouble agreeing with an exact source or the validation of certain facts...I can understand that. Not every fact and occurance can be right on the mark. Get to know Sally thru her book and you may agree with me that she seems to be the sort of writer who would be as sure as she could be about many facts, if not all of them.

The facts that we cannot dispute, though, are those Ms. Spears tells us that relate to her feelings for her daughter, her daughter's work, her daughter's life and her death. That is why we need to read it. Not to suddenly discover the right or wrong of any issue but to learn about a marvelous young woman as seen thru the eyes of her Mom.

That she wrote it, I would argue, is amazing enough. That she wrote it with such detail about aviation things that a San Antonio lawyer, who never flew, would have to spend hours upon hours getting right, and that she wrote it with such objectivity towards Kara's personality, both the perfect parts and the not so perfect...well, that is what impresses me the most. The pain of losing your vivacious, young daughter is difficult enough. To write about it is, I think, the most difficult of all.

Some folks would understandably say that Sally Spears may have been too emotionally biased to write this book and she was out to lay blame. With what she has had to endure, I would reply that Sally has earned the right to feel those feelings. After reading her book, I think that she did her very best to be as objective as she could. If any of the emotion and pain of her loss lets an opinion or fact here or there be biased...well, somehow I never thought it got in the way. I understand.

Read Call Sign Revlon. It will show you a person who had a dream and went after it...written by someone who knew her the best. I think it is very good. If anyone is biased in all of this, it is me. Kara did what I always wanted to do. She became a driver of pointy nosed jets with after-burners that fly off of ships at sea.

Go Get Em, Kara !

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good picture of common struggles in Naval Aviation, June 5, 2002

By 

Diane Diekman (Sioux Falls, SD, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Call Sign Revlon: The Life and Death of Navy Fighter Pilot Kara Hultgreen (Hardcover)

I don't know any of the individuals in this book, but I've been in the Navy long enough to recognize all the types and to confirm the descriptions of many of the settings here. Sally Spears did a good job of researching and writing this book, and she was more objective than I'd expect a mother to be. It's easy to see Kara brought on a lot of her own problems, but I understand the reasons for her behavior. Because of our different personalities, I wonder whether I would have liked her as a fellow officer.

I have the greatest admiration for this first generation of female fighter pilots. Being a woman in the man's world of naval aviation is tough. (I know that from my experiences, described in "Navy Greenshirt: A Leader Made, Not Born.") And fighter pilots are tough on each other. To take on that double challenge and succeed in this harsh environment requires a woman with extraordinary guts and determination. Those who haven't experienced the emotional pressure can't comprehend it.

As for whether Kara got special treatment, people seem to forget the pilots who trained these "tokens" are ordinary naval aviators (and men), and I have to believe they wouldn't give false grades because of command pressure. It they did, they don't deserve to be commissioned officers. Kara did get special negative treatment. Releasing a mishap investigation to the public, as someone released hers, would normally be a court martial offense.