Airman of Minot
By Senior Airman Michael Richmond, Minot Air Force Base Public Affairs
/ Published April 29, 2021
MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, ND -- 1st Lieutenant Kylie Johnson is a Weapons Systems Officer for the 69th Bomb Squadron. Originally from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Johnson became a member of Team Minot in December 2019.
“I like that it’s [Minot] a small town feel and it’s just a really good community,” said Johnson. “I really like that the 69th feels like a family and people are always supporting each other. You can hang out with people and it’s a really fun work environment, but we also know when to buckle down and be serious so we can get the job done and do it well.”
Her duties include navigating B-52H Stratofortresses, ensuring that the aircrafts arrive at their destination on time, managing on board weapons systems, making sure that the targets meant to get hit, get hit, or preparing weapons in the case of change in mission objectives while in the air.
“I really like the B-52 mission, it’s very dynamic,” said Johnson. “We can do a lot of different mission sets, nukes being our big one. But we also do close air support, stand off weapons. So from one flight to the next, it’s very different. It doesn’t get boring or old, you’re constantly doing new mission sets and getting proficient at doing different things.”
A recent achievement of Johnson was being part of an incredibly long flight. “I recently flew a 37-hour flight,” said Johnson. “I’m proud to be able say I’ve done one of those, because before that my longest time in the air was 15 hours.”
Johnson gets inspiration from Martha McSally, a former Senator and military veteran. “She was the first female to fly in combat and command a fighter squadron,” said Johnson. “She really fought for women to be able to do this job, being able to be in combat and take up leadership roles in the military. Women in the military isn’t anything new, but even now there’s very little of us. When I first got to the 69th, I was one of three females. So I think that being a woman in the military, it’s really cool to be a part of that group. And I like that if a young girl sees a woman in the military, she knows that she can do that too.”
In the future, Johnson wants to continuously be a good crew member, upgrade to mission lead and eventually become an instructor to teach other WSOs in the cockpit.