A female pilot like this is a main character in Harry Turtledove’s ‘Worldwar’ series (In the Balance, Tilting the Balance, etc). I thought it was far-fetched, but apparantly not.
“If you haven’t heard of them: The Night Witches were an all-women’s bombing regiment in the Soviet military in World War II. They flew wood-and-canvas biplanes that were never meant to be used in combat. By the end of the war, they’d flown roughly 24,000 combat missions, all of them at night, earning 23 of them the title Hero of the Soviet Union.”
Source: Missed In History: The Night Witches | Stuff You Missed in History Class
