In this video, Boeing bids a fond farewell to a voice that F/A–18 Super Hornet fighter pilots know well, a voice that’s very likely saved more than a few of their lives. She’s known as “Bitchin’ Betty,” and she was the faceless voice of the F/A–18—until now. Kind of like Siri, but for fighter jets.
Her real name is Leslie Shook. For 20 years, Shook’s voice has greeted F/A–18 pilots when they power up their craft, and more critically, it’s her urgent voice that calls their attention to things on the verge of going horribly wrong inside and out of the cockpit. Hence the “Bitchin’.” Shook doesn’t mind the nickname, and talks in the video of a friend introducing her to an “air crew,” or flyer, who felt indebted to Betty for her lifesaving “roll right, roll right!” She understandably tears up recalling the story.
Shook got the assignment when she was working in the video department at McDonnell Douglas, which was eventually bought by Boeing. It didn’t seem like any big deal at the time. During the recording session, she told NPR, all that was on her mind was that she “had great hopes of getting home in time for dinner at some point that evening.”
As she comes out to “say goodbye to the girls,” Shook says, “I suspect I’ll be in this airplane as long as this airplane’s flying. And that’s a long time yet.”
