Dragon Lady: Col. Merryl Tengesdal (AFW Jan/Feb 2022)
By Liz Booker
Published in Aviation for Women Magazine January/February 2022
“I was born and raised in The Bronx. A Black girl from Co-op City,” writes Colonel Merryl Tengesdal, USAF (Ret.) in her new memoir, Shatter the Sky: What Going to the Stratosphere Taught Me About Self-Worth, Sacrifice, and Discipline. To date, she is the first, and only, Black woman to pilot the Lockheed U-2S ‘Dragon Lady’, a single-engine, high altitude reconnaissance plane that looks and handles like a giant glider. With honesty and humor, she takes us on her journey from gold to silver wings to fly this unique and challenging aircraft, then into her retirement as a personal trainer and her participation in last season’s reality television show, Tough as Nails.
Col. Tengesdal’s aviation dreams were inspired as a child, as they were for so many pilots, by the magic of the space program. In pursuit of her dream, she emerged from The Bronx to earn her Electrical Engineering degree from the University of New Haven in Connecticut. She commissioned as a United States Naval Aviator in 1994, earned her wings in 1996, and flew the SH60-B ‘Seahawk’ helicopter on deployments to the Middle East, South America, and the Caribbean before becoming a T-6 ‘Texan’ instructor pilot. When her Navy service obligation was complete, she applied for an inter-service transfer to the Air Force hoping to get closer to space flying the U2.
The processes was rigorous. She began the two-week interview and evaluation, including a claustrophobia test—the equivalent of an isolation chamber. A Cold War-era aircraft developed under the project code-name ‘Dragon Lady’, the U2 was originally designed in the 1950’s to fly at altitudes that would allow aerial surveillance undeterred by Soviet anti-aircraft equipment and fighters. The pilot flies solo for up to six-and-a-half hours in a fully pressurized suit that limits visibility and the ability to eat, drink, or relieve herself without special equipment. Col. Tengesdal passed the tests and began her year-long training program.
“The U2 aircraft is an extremely unique and difficult plane to learn to fly. It flies at high-altitude, at about 70,000 feet, with a very long range. We wear the pressure suit for the duration of the flight. It’s a single-seat aircraft, and it’s one of the more challenging aircraft to land because of the bicycle landing gear configuration. You’ve basically got to stall at two feet—no drift, no crab—and visibility is very limited. Flying the U2 aircraft is not intuitive to most pilots. It’s physically uncomfortable and physiologically exhausting. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart. I had a tough time with wing control. I kept teeter-tottering so much that I wore out the tail wheel and it had to be replaced.”
U2 pilots land with the assistance of a ‘mobile’—another qualified U2 pilot in a high-performance chase car, who matches their landing speed on the runway after they cross the threshold and monitors their descent and wing position for touchdown.
“It’s possible to land without a mobile, especially with experience, but it’s much safer with a mobile. The no-flap landing is a dangerous procedure. It’s a shallow approach and the stall margin is plus-or-minus two knots. If you hit a thermal on approach at 100 feet, you’ll be in trouble. It’s a handful of aircraft. And she’ll kill you very quickly if you become complacent.”
Col. Tengesdal mastered the landing and flew over 1,000 hours in the U2 supporting U.S. operations over Iraq and Afghanistan. Of the approximately 1,100 U2 pilots in the history of the aircraft’s service, only ten have been women. With her signature candor and humor, she says of the U2 community, “It’s the land of the ‘not-quite-right’ – you’ve gotta be little touched in the head to want to expose yourself to these kinds of physiological influences on your body.”
After four operational deployments, Col. Tengesdal was assigned as the Commander at Palmdale, Ca. for flight test and program depot maintenance. The position required a four-aircraft upgrade into the T-38 ‘Talon’ supersonic jet to serve as an instructor pilot in the co-located training squadron. At the same time, her mother’s health was failing. The stress weighed on her, and it affected her performance in the aircraft. “When I was doing my four-ship training I failed consecutive flights. I was starting to think I wasn’t going to make it.” She pushed through and completed the upgrade. “You’re not going to succeed in everything,” she says. “Part of growth is failing and learning what type of person you truly are. Everyone goes through it. It’s how you come out on the other side—how you react—that determines who you are.”
Col. Tengesdal is no-nonsense and straightforward about all things in her book Shatter the Sky, including race and gender. She says, “The U2 is a phenomenal aircraft that still performs the mission it was designed to do in the middle of the last century. But I feel about the U2 the same way I feel about other aircraft. The U2 doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t care what color your skin is, what neighborhood you’re from, or how rich you are. The only thing the aircraft cares about is whether or not you can fly. You’re either a good pilot or you’re a bad pilot. Get in the cockpit and let’s see if you’ve got what it takes.”
During her follow-on staff assignment to U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) after Palmdale, Col. Tengesdal gave birth to her first child at 41 years old. When he was ten months old, she was given orders for a year-long unaccompanied deployment. Her priorities had changed and she declined the orders, so she was surprised when she was promoted to Colonel and offered a position at the Pentagon. She retired in 2017, when her son was 4 years old.
On one of her U2 deployments, she had read an article about the fitness icon, Jack LaLane. “The idea of being a fitness trainer appealed to me. It was a sign of things to come.” Fitness was always front-and-center in her life, starting out as a young athlete. She earned her first fitness certification while at NORTHCOM. Then, in 2015, she was mentored by a personal trainer at the Pentagon while recovering from hip replacement surgery and earned her second certification. When she retired, she started working at a local gym, where she draws on her leadership and fitness experience to tailor physical training programs for clients of all ages and fitness levels. She finds personal training to be a great conduit to inspire, mentor, and motivate people, while also leaving time for her kids. “It’s a great way to reach people. People hear you better when they’re physically exhausted—they’re more vulnerable and more receptive to critique. Being a personal trainer provides the opportunity and flexibility to do everything I want to do.”
While on active duty as a U2 pilot, performing highly classified missions, Col. Tengesdal limited her social media presence. As a civilian personal trainer, she started using social media to promote her services. One day she was waiting for a client to arrive and posted a video of herself, dancing in the gym. The producer of the reality television series, Tough as Nails, saw the video, researched her background, and invited her to screen for the show. “I thought she was trying to scam me,” says Tengesdal. When she learned the show brought together teams of hard-working individuals from all walks of life who remain with their team until the end, even if they’re eliminated from winning the grand prize, she decided to participate. “The show is about how far people will go, physically and mentally, to get the job done. I saw the trailer for the first season. Teams were doing stuff like shoveling 3000 pounds of dirt, doing real jobs. I thought, I can do this. All I gotta do is put one foot in front of the other. I’d just like to see how far I can push myself.”
She says she did it to demonstrate to her children, and kids with backgrounds like hers, that anything is possible if they work hard for it. That sentiment represents her broader goal to inspire and empower underprivileged children. “I want to use fitness as an avenue to reach kids who are under-served. Profit, non-profit, I don’t care, as long as we can provide services to help kids out of this rut, to break the cycle.” Right before filming Tough as Nails, the Tengesdal family welcomed a foster child into their home. In August of 2021, they adopted her.
Partial proceeds from the sale of Shatter the Sky go to support the Pace Center for Girls, whose mission is to provide girls and young women an opportunity for a better future through education, counseling, training, and advocacy.
