Breaking barriers in the air

By NINA LARAMORE / Santa Rosa Correspondent

Helicopter pilot Elizabeth Cook Peebles, 32, has spent the past three years under a microscope, doing what no female pilot has ever done before. As the only female helicopter pilot in Abu Dhabi, she flies tourists, heads of state and even Arab royalty around the United Arab Emirates.

“If I misstep, it could confirm the pre-existing notion that women shouldn’t be out there,” Peebles said. “I may not portray it, but it’s a heavy responsibility.”

She grew up in Santa Rosa and still considers it home. “I spent 17 years here, and my parents are still here,” she says. Although she didn’t know what she wanted to do while attending Montgomery High School, she credits her parents, Catherine DePrima and Leo Cook, with giving her the courage to blaze new trails.

“One of my favorite activities as a little girl was when my father would throw me into the air and catch me,” Peebles said. “He ecouraged me to ski steeper mountains, climb to higher vistas and travel to new places. He showed me how much fun life could be if I just pushed myself out of my comfort zone every once in awhile.”

After graduating from UC Santa Barbara with a degree in communications and health services, she took a job at a luxury spa in Tecate, Mexico, and then became a health instructor for a weight loss company in San Diego.

From her office window she could see the flight path of a small airport and often found herself daydreaming while watching the air traffic. She signed up to flying lessons and loved the freedom of being airborne.

“But it wasn’t until I treated myself to an introductory helicopter ride that a lightbulb went off in my head,” she said. “The helicopter was the epitome of cool. I loved the bird’s-eye perspective of the Earth.”

She started in a Robinson R22, so small and sensitive it felt like she was “putting on a flight suit and dancing with it,” she said. “The difference between a helicopter and an airplane is like the difference between a motorcycle and a car.”

While earning her first of seven pilot’s licenses (two in small planes, five in helicopters), Peebles went to work in the helicopter company’s office and eventually moved to Las Vegas to fly tours of the Grand Canyon. That’s where she met and married Kirk Peebles, who flew for the same company.

After they were married, they heard about a job opportunity with Falcon Aviation Services in the United Arab Emirates. They were hired after flying enough hours to get an Airline Transport Pilot rating, the highest level in aviation but the company’s minimum hiring standard.

They found Abu Dhabi to be cosmopolitan, but very hot. “No one would ever choose to live there for the weather,” Peebles said. She also learned to accept the shock when people first saw her in the cockpit.

“They are always respectful, more so than the Western passengers I used to fly to the Grand Canyon. I fly people who want to get somewhere real fast,  to areas where they haven’t seen a woman in six months or more, but they always treat me well.”

Once they have flown with her, her gender is no longer an issue, she said, and the royal family is very supportive.

“The other day I flew out to do a refueling in the middle of nowhere and an Indian guy was assisting with the fuel truck,” Peebles said. “He said he would tell his wife and daughters about me. It’s something that they would never have thought possible in a million years. It opens their minds to what women can do, and I just love that.”

Peebles describes her job at “a glorified taxi driver, taking people wherever they want to go.” When she first arrived in Abu Dhabi, she did eight tours a day of Palm Jumeirah and other landmarks that can can only be appreciated from the air. She also has lunched at royal palaces, landed on top of the world’s highest helicopter pad and flown over desert landscape that resembles Mars.

When the economy collapsed, Falcon expanded to offshore oil exploration, and Kirk was promoted to that program. With the support of Falcon’s management, Peebles will join him by the end of the year, having conquered the skepticism of the old school company that runs the oil fields.

“No woman had ever flown offshore in Abu Dhabi,” Peebles said, explaining the victory, “but I had already put a small crack in the glass ceiling.” Her training on the Bell 412 helicopter used for offshore flying begins this month.

She and Kirk aren’t sure how long they will stay in Abu Dhabi or their ultimate goal, other than earning as much money as they can and paying off their flight school debts.

Peebles won scholarships from the Ninety-nines, the oldest flying club for women whose first president was Amelia Earhart, and the Whirly-Girls International Women Helicopter Pilots. She belongs to both groups, including the Arabian section of the Ninety-nines, which had only 13 members when she joined.

“The Whirly Girls scholarship made it possible for me to get my instrument rating in helicopters,” Peebles. “It was very cool to be around these women.

“Once  I met and fell in love with Kirk, we had to merge our paths,” she said. “Many couples in aviation don’t stay together because it’s hard to get jobs for the same company and in the same city. Our personal goal was to find a place we could work together.”