RAINEY-BARBARA

FIRST  FEMALE  NAVAL  AVIATOR

Barbara Ann Allen Rainey was born on August 20, 1948, at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.  She was the daughter of a career naval officer.  She graduated from Lakewood High School in California where she was an outstanding athlete and a member of the National Honor Society.  She next studied at Long Beach City College, California, where she was consistently on the dean’s list.  She later transferred to and graduated from Whittier College in California.

Rainey was commissioned in the U.S. Naval Reserve at the Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode, Island, in December 1970, and was assigned to the Naval Amphibious Base, Little Creek, Virginia, later transferring to SACLANT in Norfolk, Virginia.  In early 1973, the Secretary of the Navy announced a test program to train female naval aviators.  Seeking a greater challenge and wanting to follow in the footsteps of her brother who was a Marine Corps aviator.  She applied and was accepted into the Flight Training School at NAS Pensacola, Florida.  She was the first of her class to win her Gold Wings and was designated the first female naval aviator in ceremonies at NAS Corpus Christi, Texas, on February 22, 1974.  She was assigned to fly C-1s in Alameda, California, and additionally became the first jet qualified woman in the Navy flying the T-39.

During her flight training, she met and married John C. Rainey.  Upon becoming pregnant with her first daughter, she resigned her commission in November 1977.  Rainey remained active in the Naval Reserve, and while pregnant with her second daughter, she became qualified to fly the R6D (DC-6).  In 1981, with the Navy experiencing a shortage of flight instructors, she was accepted for recall to active duty as a flight instructor and was assigned to VT-3 at NAS Whiting Field, flying the T-34C Mentor.  On July 13, 1982, LCDR Rainey was practicing touch-and-go landings with a student at Middleton Field in Alabama, when the aircraft suddenly banked sharply, lost altitude and crashed.  Rainey and her student were both killed in the crash.  She was buried at Arlington National Cemetery beneath a grave stone which is inscribed:  FIRST WOMAN NAVAL AVIATOR – LOVING WIFE AND MOTHER.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)