Some 130 female seniors from 54 high schools began on Tuesday a long journey that they hope will end with them sitting in the cockpit of an air force plane. They were the first group to enter round one of the examinations being administered at the Air Force Pilots Recruiting Station in Wuhan, the capital city of central China's Hubei Province, on March 8.

The examinations, being given to thousands of young women from 12 provinces around the country, will continue until April 12. The first round of eliminations will leave about 1,500 to undergo the flight physical, which consists of 116 separate items, and the stringent psychological exam.

If their mental and physical health measure up, the candidates will have their political backgrounds checked. Then all they will need to do is passing the college entrance examination and one follow-up check by the Air Force Pilots Recruitment Bureau -- and wait to hear whether they are one of only 30 females to be selected to attend the Air Force Aviation Institute. The recruitment will be completed on July 8.

The next selection will not take place for another three years.

China's first group of female Air Force pilots graduated from flight school in 1951, and only about 300 have made it into the pilot's seat of military aircraft since then. Part of the reason for the low figures was the long waiting period before openings: groups of candidates were selected only once every eight years. That period is being shortened following the selection of the current batch.

For any woman who hopes eventually to become an astronaut in China, the selection for flight school is just the first small step.

Those female pioneers in air force planes graduated in November 1951 following seven months of training at the 7th Aviation School in Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang Province. The 55 new pilots took part in the Korean War in the early 1950s, and were instrumental in China's experiments with its atomic and hydrogen bombs and early satellites in the 1960s. They were also regular participants in National Day celebrations as well as rescue and disaster relief work.

In 1984, the fifth group of female aviators became the first to graduate with two years of college. The next group, pinning on their wings in 1993, were the first to hold bachelor's degrees in strategy.

Yue Xicui, deputy air force chief of staff in the Guangzhou Military Area Command, is the first female pilot to attain the rank of general. Zhang Yumei is China's first woman test pilot and Liu Xiaolian, vice president of the Air Force Command College, is the first to win a first-class merit medal, the military's high award.

Dong Suozhen and Liu Yuhuan are the first mother and daughter military pilots in the country.

(China.org.cn by Wang Qian, March 10, 2005)