Nicola Winter (; born 10 March 1985) is a German reserve astronaut and former fighter pilot. Winter became the second female fighter pilot in the history of the

German Air Force The German Air Force (german: Luftwaffe, lit=air weapon or air arm, ) is the aerial warfare branch of the , the armed forces of Germany. The German Air Force (as part of the ''Bundeswehr'') was founded in 1956 during the era of the Cold War a ...

in 2007 flying both

Tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...

and

Eurofighter Typhoon The Eurofighter Typhoon is a European multinational twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter. The Typhoon was designed originally as an air-superiority fighter and is manufactured by a consortium of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo ...

in the

. In 2017, she was selected as an astronaut candidate for the

private spaceflight Private spaceflight is spaceflight or the development of spaceflight technology that is conducted and paid for by an entity other than a government agency. In the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Unio ...

organisation Die Astronautin, which aims to send the first German woman into space, but later withdrew from the programme. In 2022, she was named a reserve astronaut in the

European Astronaut Corps The European Astronaut Corps is a unit of the European Space Agency (ESA) that selects, trains, and provides astronauts as crew members on U.S. and Russian space missions. The corps has 13 active members, able to serve on the International Space St ...

Air force service

Nicola Winter's mother flew

hang glider Hang gliding is an air sport or recreational activity in which a pilot flies a light, non-motorised foot-launched heavier-than-air aircraft called a hang glider. Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminium alloy or composite frame covered ...

s, and her younger sister Nena is a pilot with

Lufthansa Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), commonly shortened to Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. When combined with its subsidiaries, it is the second- largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried. Lufthansa is one of the five founding m ...

. In 2004, she joined the German Air Force, attending a one-year school focusing on officer training. She then spent a year in academics to prepare for pilot training set up for 53 weeks at the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program (ENJJPT) at

Sheppard Air Force Base Sheppard Air Force Base is a United States Air Force (USAF) base located north of the central business district of Wichita Falls, Texas, Wichita Falls, in Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the largest training base and most divers ...

and qualified in 2007. At the end of the training cycle, Winter was assigned to the 322nd Squadron in Bavaria, flying Tornados with Major Ulrike Flender, Germany's first female fighter pilot. Flender graduated pilot training about 10 months ahead of Winter, also at ENJJPT. Winter became an instructor pilot at ENJJPT with the 459th Flying Training Squadron in 2012, and completed her flying training as a Eurofighter Typhoon pilot in 2015. She took leave from the armed forces in 2018 to work in management consulting.

Private astronaut candidate

In 2016, the privately funded spaceflight programme Die Astronautin announced it would be taking applicants for the first female German astronaut. All of eleven Germans who have so far voyaged into outer space were men. As a fighter pilot, Winter applied to be Germany's first female astronaut among 86 candidates on the list as of September 2016 and was one of 30 women taking part in the final selection process as of December 2016. She was selected as one of two winners, but later withdrew from the programme.

Astronaut career

Winter was selected as a reserve astronaut in the

2022 European Space Agency Astronaut Group The 2022 European Space Agency Astronaut Group is the latest class of the European Astronaut Corps. The selection recruited five "career" astronauts, 11 "reserve" and one "astronaut with a physical disability". It is the fourth European Space Agen ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Winter, Nicola Living people 1985 births German Air Force pilots German women aviators Women military aviators European Space Agency personnel 20th-century German women 21st-century German women Military personnel from Munich