Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

Like all air force pilots she is a bit of a show-off, coming in low, doing a flypast with the multimillion Rand piece of military hardware before setting it down, and then, just for the television crews, taking off and doing it all over again.

On the ground waiting for her were Deputy Minister of Defence Mluleki George and senior SA National Defence Force generals and a large media contingent.

A scene that might be all a bit daunting for someone who recently turned 21 -- but not for Second Lieutenant Phetogo Molawa.

She is the first black female helicopter pilot in the SA Air Force and on Wednesday she made her presence known by landing a Oryx helicopter at the National Women in Defence conference taking place outside Pretoria.

“It is excellent fun, I don’t think there is anything better, I think it is the best thing ever,” she said about getting behind the controls of the large Air Force transport helicopter.

Later, at a media conference, she said she had chosen a helicopter pilot career because of the versatility of the aircraft and the diverse nature of the work.

“You’ll never have the same thing twice, every day is a new challenge, and that is how I want to live my life, and the type of career I want to pursue,” Molawa said.

Added into the mix of responsibilities she mentioned was “flying into hostile situations,” which is also the purpose of the conference: looking at the role of women in combat.

Although South Africa is not currently at war, it has women soldiers deployed as part of United Nations and African Union peacekeeping operations on the African continent.

"In interacting in peacekeeping missions we are beginning to see the benefit of deploying women more so in addressing questions of gender-based violence,” said the SANDF's most senior woman, Major-General Nontsikelelo Motumi.

“We see women focusing more on the community needs. It's no longer only about what the warlords are doing and what they are up to but also about supporting communities,” she added.

However, luring women into the military has not been easy, George admitted.

“We have got a big challenge. Sometimes when we spoke about transformation theoretically we never understood that it was such a big challenge. It's not easy because it deals with human beings,” the deputy minister said.

This notwithstanding, the defence force has all but reached its target of 30 percent women representation at the lower ranks, George said.

The remaining challenge lay in promoting them to higher ranks.

“The Department of Defence is not like other state departments where you can bring people in, all people must go up the ranks,” George said.

Figures released by the SANDF on Wednesday show that women make up 23.8 percent with men at 76.2 percent of the uniformed members.

Most women, a number of 3,720, hold the rank of private, while 1,458 are corporals and 1,356 sergeants.

Of the 214 generals in the defence force, only 23 are females.

“Our reality is that we cannot hope to achieve women’s representation in all decision making structures of the organisation if women are not represented in the management of defence,” George said.

In trying create a better feeder system for women’s advancement through the ranks, the SANDF plans to increase its intake of females next year to 40 percent.

George said female officers, such as Molawa, would be sent to remote areas of the country to show young girls what horizons could be reached in a career with the military.