Aviation Grad Leads Fighter Jet Team to be Featured at Sioux Falls Airshow 

SD – Aimee Fiedler didn’t grow up in a military family, and no one in her family was a pilot, but by sixth grade, the South Texan knew she wanted to be a military pilot. 

Now a U.S. Air Force F-16 Viper Demo Team pilot, the 2013 South Dakota State University grad will be back in the state this summer as the team’s commander, demonstrating the combat capabilities of F-16 fighter jets at the Sioux Falls Airshow, July 29-30. Fiedler credits her aviation interest to a T-38 military pilot who attended the Fiedlers’ church. The pilot’s sons enrolled in service academies. That influenced the sixth grader to set a life goal of attending the U.S. Air Force Academy and becoming a military pilot. By high school, she had become a soccer standout. While she did visit the Air Force Academy, Fiedler decided not to attend. A second cousin of Brookings, Ashley Odegaard, ’15, asked her, “Why don’t you come to South Dakota State? They have a really good soccer team. They just qualified for the national tournament.” 

Fiedler decided to visit, and “as soon as I showed up, it felt like home. I walked on campus, and it was the perfect size. It was cool to have extended family there. After meeting (the coach) and the team, I just loved the team,” said Fiedler, who today is stationed at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumpter, South Carolina. But in spring 2009, Fiedler was planning a prelaw track. “I didn’t even know SDSU had an aviation program,” she said. 

Fiedler trained on the T-38, and then various pilots were matched with their future aircraft. “When I was going through, F-16 (pilot slots) were backlogged. It just happened; the night before my assignment night, the next class started getting F-16 assignments,” said Fiedler, one of two chosen for the F-16. That was 2018, and “once you’ve gained your Air Force wings, you owe the Air Force 10 years,” she said. The pilot also is matched with the aircraft for the duration. The selection was followed by a month of survivor’s school—wilderness school and prisoner-of-war training—and 12 more weeks on the T-38 to be introduced to fighter jet fundamentals. In January 2019, nearly a year after being selected to fly F-16s, Fiedler actually began to train on F-16s. That nine-month course includes six weeks on how to fly the F-16 and the remainder on how to engage the F-16 in combat. In November 2019, she began her first mission, serving as a wingman for one year at Kunsan Air Base, 2 ½ hours south of Seoul, South Korea. 

She also has gotten used to the spotlight of being the lead Viper demo pilot. Fiedler is only the second female demo pilot, so inevitably, questions broach the topic of being a female standard bearer. “It is not about the fact I’m a girl that’s doing a job. The most important thing to realize is if you can meet the standard, you can do the job. It doesn’t matter what you look like. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are. If you can do the job, you can do the job,” Fiedler said. “In going through pilot training, I saw a lot of men not meet the standard. I saw a lot of women not meet the standard. I saw a lot of men exceed the standard. I saw a lot of women exceed the standard. The jet is a great equalizer. The jet doesn’t care who you are.”