Following an inspirational Theater in the Woods panel discussion during AirVenture 2025, EAA is excited to welcome back aerial firefighters Annie Paya, Bonnie Wilkens, and Tracy Zedeck for the next Speaker Series. Join us for this special, sized-down panel at the EAA Aviation Museum on Thursday, May 21, at 7 p.m. to explore the incredible lifesaving missions these women undertake.

All three pilots fight fires from the air, but they each come from very different paths.

Annie Paya started as a wildland firefighter digging lines with the U.S. Forest Service. “I spent seven seasons on crews across the West where helicopters were a constant presence,” she said. “I still remember the first time I watched a helicopter drop water. I was completely captivated.”

Though her interest had been grabbed immediately, her confidence to get into the cockpit took a little bit to catch up. After seven years of fighting flames from the ground, she’s now in her ninth year of fighting from the air. Today, she flies the Blackhawk UH-60 helicopter.

“Fire has always been my first love; aviation simply became another way to engage with it,” Annie said.

“What sets my perspective apart is that I’ve lived both sides of the operation,” Annie said. “I don’t just understand how to fly in a fire environment; I understand fire behavior, suppression tactics, and the realities crews face on the ground. That perspective shapes how I make decisions in the aircraft and how I communicate with the teams we support.”

Bonnie Wilkens, a helicopter pilot and aerial firefighter since the 1980s, had wanted to be a veterinarian and even earned a degree in zoology. Then she tried skydiving. “Somehow the vet experience went straight out the window, and how to exist in aviation became the focus of my career,” Bonnie said.

While studying bioaeronautics and learning to fly fixed wings in her birthplace of England, she was sent to a company in Pennsylvania for a gypsy moth spraying assignment. “They only had helicopters, and I loved the helicopters,” she said. “Had I not had that exposure to helicopters, I don’t know if I would have ever flown one.”

She completed her degree and returned to the Pennsylvania company to keep flying helicopters, and in 1989 Bonnie was courted by the U.S. Forest Service as the first female firefighter pilot. Today, she primarily fights fires in the UH-60 for a company based in Boise, Idaho.

Bonnie has flown many types of helicopters, including the Bell 47, Bell 212, and she was the first civilian woman to be checked out in a Boeing CH-47 Chinook.

“I like the firefighting program because it really is super rewarding You are doing something good for the community and for people’s personal lives, be it their home, livestock, or farm,” Bonnie said. “When you do some of the other missions, you don’t really see the results for maybe six months. Like when I would spray, you wouldn’t see a crop dying for six weeks or so. But when you drop the water, you can see instantly whether it was perfect. It’s a very challenging and a very dynamic environment.”

Tracy Zedeck, the WomenVenture Power Lunch 2025 keynote speaker, grew up in a nonaviation family, but aviation has had her heart since she was just 10 years old. She ended up studying psychology in college, but her path quickly changed when she got a job at a small airport.

“Through the course of my career, through asking questions this way and that, I learned about aerial firefighting, and once I learned that that was a job, I built my resume to meet the qualifications needed to get a chance.”

She now has been fighting fires for nearly a decade. “Over the years, my experience has included towing gliders over the Rockies, charter and medevac in California, glacier tours in Alaska, and seaplane flying in the Maldives and Croatia. For the last nine years, I am grateful to have landed my dream job as an aerial firefighter flying the CL-415 Super Scooper.”

The CL-415 is an amphibious flying boat that scoops water from water sources like rivers and lakes then drops it on the fire. Her favorite aircraft, Tracy flew one for her first fire back in 2016.

Just like fighting a fire on the ground, aerial firefighting requires massive amounts of teamwork and coordination to accomplish the mission safely, so there is no room for ego.

“A big part of this industry is staying humble, supporting one another, and being willing to keep learning, no matter how much experience you have. I wouldn’t be here without the people who took the time to teach me, challenge me, and support me along the way, including the ladies in this panel,” Annie said. “I’ve asked for help more times than I can count, and those conversations made all the difference. If there’s one thing I’d emphasize, it’s that none of us do this alone and we’re all better when we’re willing to learn from each other.”

Thursday’s presentation is free for EAA members and youths, and just $5 for nonmembers.

If you’re unable to attend, all Speaker Series presentations are recorded and will be available to members to watch here at a later date.

Speaker Series is supported by Alro Steel, Capital Credit Union, Community First Credit Union, Cozumel Mexican Grill, Kwik Trip, Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Specialists, Pilotsmith, Sargento, and The Taqueria.