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Cellist finds musical harmony in cockpit |
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Wednesday, 14 May 2008 |
Cliff Buchan
News Editor
Kristi Ahlberg went off to college intent on enhancing her skills as a talented cellist. A music degree later, she proved her point.
The fine notes that Ahlberg can make on the cello, however, is not her driving force today. As 2nd Lt. Kristi Ahlberg, she is about to embark on a career as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force.
She recently reported for duty at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi where she will soon begin work as a flight instructor pilot. She will be a flight instructor in a T-37 Tweet, a turbojet that is the primary Air Force trainer plane.
In early April, she received her wings during a ceremony at the base.
Columbus Air Force Base is the home of the 14th Flying Training Wing of the Air Education and Training Command. The base is located five miles north of the city of Columbus in Lowndes County of northeast Mississippi, 10 miles west of the Alabama state border.
The new life has been quite a transition for the 23-year-old Columbus resident who graduated high school here in 2002 and went on to college at St. Thomas.
Not many music majors end up in the military, but that is the path in life that Ahlberg has selected.
“I like the idea of a challenge,” Ahlberg said recently during a short leave home. She found that challenge with music and the military, she says.
Ahlberg earned her degree in music performance in four years at St. Thomas during a period when she toyed with a number of possible career avenues. But her interest in flying and the military took off in her freshman year in college when she learned of the Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at the school.
She joined the ROTC program and was as one of two females in the 27-student class that she described as “very competitive.”
After scoring high on a series of qualifying tests, she was accepted into the pilot training program. When she graduated from St. Thomas in the spring of 2006, Ahlberg was commissioned into the Air Force as a second lieutenant.
That kicked into gear her 10-year contract with the Air Force which will invest heavily in the training of Ahlberg as a pilot.
She learned to fly in Colorado and went to additional training at Raldolph Air Force Base, Texas, and spent 250 hours training in a T-1 Jayhawk to put her in a position to be certified as a pilot trainer.
That will unfold in Misssissppi after more advanced training is completed.
The future
With the bulk of her 10-year commitment still in front of her, Ahlberg is likely to remain in Mississippi for three years. She’s in line to become a first lieutenant in June.
Ahlberg says she is eagerly looking forward to her duty as an instructor pilot but admits to larger plane ambitions.
“I’m going to fly big planes,” she said. She is certified in the T-1 Jayhawk which is a seven-passenger jet similar to jets used for private business travel.
But her goal is to fly cargo planes — the C-17 Globemaster or the C-130 Hercules. “They go everywhere,” Ahlberg says of the C-17s. “They are versatile.”
Landing such an assignment would be the realization of her “dream” job in the Air Force, she says. It could also mean a post near Seattle, a region of the country where she would like to live one day.
She is also a realist.
As an enlisted person during a time of war, she understands overseas duty is likely at some point.
“Being in the military, you will deploy,” she said. “I will be gone at some time.”
Love of music
She is not about to abandon the cello — not by any means, she says.
When she is home visiting her parents, Cheryl and Phil Nelson, she takes time to play with a musical group during mass at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Forest Lake.
She also enjoys the stringed instrument at her second home in Mississippi.
In truth, Ahlberg says, she finds many similarities in her duties in the Air Force and how an orchestra must work in unison. In the Air Force as in an orchestra, there is a chain of command, a director and the need to perform as one, she said.
She also likes what the Air Force has brought to her personal growth and development.
“I really like the structure and the organization,” she said.
And there is something about flying, too, she adds.
“It’s [the Air Force] been a good challenge,” Ahlberg said. “It’s a completely different world up there, making it all work.”
From mastering the cello to becoming an instructor pilot in the Air Force, Ahlberg has covered lots of ground.
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