Lourie DeBoer grew up no stranger to aviation. Her father was an Army fixed-wing pilot in Vietnam. “My dad flew the Mohawk in Vietnam. So I grew up with his flying buddies around and telling stories of combat flying in the den over cigars and whiskey.”
Flying was always something discussed in her house growing up. Lourie set out to attend the University of Alaska Fairbanks to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering. While in Alaska, Lourie earned her pilot certificate while flying with a bush pilot as her instructor. “I just absolutely fell in love with it,” she said. “I decided that this is what I wanted to do with my life. The hardest part was having to break it to my father who had just helped me get through school. I was just about to graduate with my degree, and now I wanted to go do something else. After the initial shock, he completely supported my decision.”
Lourie then joined the Army to fly. She attended Army aviation training at Fort Rucker where her father had been known by many on the base from his combat flying, but also from being an instructor there teaching class 58D weapons systems. “I had been living on ramen noodles, so my father would bring me a good lunch from time to time,” she said. “This one day we were sitting out on the benches in front of one of the building enjoying our food. In the distance I see my instructor coming. He had a big smile and held out his hand to shake. I just assumed he was coming to say hello. I stood to shake his hand and he walked right by me and shook my dad’s hand. They started to reminisce about their flying careers together and I thought ‘Oh no, my instructor and dad are buddies.’” Lourie cherishes those memories, as her father passed away two years later.
Training for Lourie would take place in a variety of aircraft, but mainly the TH-67, which is a version of the Bell 206. “When it came time for the night and tactics training, they would branch you off to other airframes. They were going to be placing people in either the UH-1 Huey or the OH-58 for this advanced training, and I really wanted to fly the Huey. I mean it was the legend of Army aviation. I found out I was too short. I even tried standing on my tip toes, but they caught on!”
Lourie graduated and was assigned to fly the UH-60 Blackhawk. She enjoyed flying this amazing machine over Europe and then was deployed to the Middle East. While in the Middle East she had her sights set on possibly becoming an Army experimental test pilot. She served four tours altogether. Two were in Iraq, and the next two were in Afghanistan. Lourie says of the people she served with: “When you are together in these kinds of situations you end up finding friends for life,” she said. “You also find a sincere honor in serving in units like the legendary 1st Air Cavalry or the 3rd of the 158th which traces its roots to the 48th Assault Helicopter Company Blue Stars.” The Blue Stars are giants in the history of Army aviation combat.
Lourie certainly spent her time in harm’s way during her tours overseas. “I was hurt in my second tour in Iraq,” she said. “While on the ground, several of us were on top of a Blackhawk that was being worked on and was covered in oil. We suddenly had incoming enemy rocket fire, and I got two of my crew off of the top when I was blown from the top of the aircraft.” Lourie crushed two discs in her back in the fall. She had the option of going home, but instead decided to stay in country and was treated in the medical facilities overseas.
Lourie applied to become an experimental test pilot and was told that she could not because of the injury she sustained to her back. “The Army does not have a facility which trains their experimental test pilots,” she said. “They actually use the Navy to do the training. In this training you fly not only rotor aircraft, but also fixed-wing, [which] produces unrestricted experimental test pilots who fly fixed and rotary. In the fixed-wing aircraft there is an ejection seat and they felt my back could not take an ejection.”
Just as Lourie was approaching the highest level she could obtain in the Army, the chief pilot for the Army’s experimental test pilot program, CW5 Sean Magonigal came to discuss a few options with her. He had seen her flight records as well as her educational background. He thought being in the experimental test program would be a good fit for her. This included the test pilot training she had wanted to go for. She told him of her back injury which resulted in her having a flight waiver. Sean explained that they had changed the requirements and urged her to submit her records to him for the flight surgeons to look over. “Two days later I get a call that they would accept it,” she said. Lourie thought to herself, “I just made Chief Warrant Officer 5 and now my biggest dream just knocked on the door. I was at a point in my career where I could wind down, and now I was having the option of going through the toughest training in Army aviation. It was a dream that I thought I had lost, and now here it is.” The work would be hard, but Lourie decided she didn’t want to look back and ask “what if.”
The next step of being accepted into the program was to go through phases of evaluation from the Army before being approved. The first phase would involve the applicants come out and meet in person at the Redstone Arsenal. At this point the Army would make sure prospects had some of the basic skills the Navy training would be looking for. “They wanted to make sure you could meet requirements,” she said. “For example they wanted to make sure you could swim so that you could pass the Navy swim test.”
The Army assessment second phase included putting you into two aircraft you have never flown before. “For me, they had me fly the UH-72 Lakota, and the CH-47F Chinook. As I flew the Chinook, this huge smile broke onto my face,” she said. “This single moment was worth the entire effort to be here. If I left that day after that flight, it would still have been totally worth it.”
The school to train pilots to become experimental test pilots is not one to take lightly. Lourie said, “Hands down it is the toughest school in Army aviation. The Navy Test Pilot School is not just hard, it is phenomenally hard,” she said. “97 astronauts have been through this school.” On the first day, an instructor of the school said, “You will soon find your days divided in this manner. The first half of your day will be spent in class. The second half of the day will be flying, and the third half will be spent on paperwork.”
The challenging next step was to have the test pilots in training fly a variety of different aircraft from many different eras. “The thought process was that we would need to learn how to compensate for the different characteristics of each of these airframes,” she said. “Aviation back in the day, they had to create airplanes back in the day which were aerodynamically stable. Today they are able to make systems which can overcome [inherently unstable] designs with augmented controls. Some of them kept you so busy you had to remember to breathe.” Some of these airframes that they flew in training were a T-38, B-25, an H-19 Chickasaw, and two different European helicopters. In total, they flew at least a dozen different airframes. Lourie explained that some of the aircraft had charming traits. “I remember crawling into an OH-6 Loach for the first time and I noticed that it had a cigar lighter in it,” she said. “Like it is even labeled ‘Cigar Lighter’!”
Soon it was obvious that Lourie was going to not only survive test pilot school, but actually going to have a chance to live out a dream she had set for herself years before. “It was my best and worst year rolled into one!”
After graduation from the test pilot school, Lourie had achieved the status of Army experimental test pilot. She selected to join the Army’s Aviation Flight Test Directorate located at the Red Stone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama. There she is currently ensuring that the aircraft designs being incorporated into the mainstream military service are indeed safe for our fighting soldiers. She conducts flight tests on current fixed and rotary-wing aircraft. “Right now I fly a variety of aircraft including the UH-60, Bell 206, which is used as a chase aircraft, the UH-72, and the C-12,” she said.
The long heritage of Army aviation is never forgotten by Lourie. She remains very close with the Vietnam-era veterans from the 48th Assault Helicopter Company. “When you serve in a unit like that, it is something you are forever proud of,” she said. “Some of my best friends are members of that unit from many different eras. We even started attending the reunions.” As we lose some of the Vietnam generation of veterans from the units and those reunions, the current day men and women serving there are stepping up to ensure that the heritage is not lost.
Lourie’s story is one that should inspire others, that in the face of long odds, one should never give up on their dream. No matter what it is, you might just be able to find a way to achieve it.