Below are the short biographies of Lt. Cdr. Ohman and Cpt. Markow to help you get acquainted with them. As they accumulate more flight experience with the 1902 glider, we will publish their comments here. We also invite you to ping us with questions for them. We'll publish the questions and answers in a running interview.

Lieutenant Commander Klas Ohman

" I took my first instructional flight at age 12 at MMI (McMinn County Airport, TN) in a PA-18 Super Cub.  I was hooked on flying many years prior, but that cinched the deal. So I
worked as an airport rat doing anything that would get me flight time.

"I made my solo flight at age 16, then went to the Citadel University and majored in Civil Engineering. It was the standard Navy flight school after that -- T-34Cs, T-2C and TA-4J.  I did my fleet training in the FA-18 at Jacksonville, FL.  I also did my first fleet tour there at Jacksonville and dropped a few bombs in Bosnia.

"Next, I went on to US Navy Test Pilot School which was just nirvana.  Worked on a slew of interesting test projects for a year and then returned to the school as an instructor.  I
moved on to my current tour aboard the USS Kitty Hawk in Japan and am once again flying the FA-18C.

"Currently I am 34, married and have two wonderful daughters, Kelsey and Beth.  Kelsey is 8 and has already been flying a couple of times.  Beth is brand new (3 months).  All told I have flown 51 different types of aircraft
(fixed wing land and sea, rotary wing and sailplanes) for around 2500 hours total time.  If everything works out alright though, flying the 1902 Wright glider and possibly the 1903 Wright Flyer will be at the top of the list."

Captain Tanya Markow

I was born Tanya Tolles and was raised in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. At  age  7, I watched the first Space Shuttle launch on television, and decided I would be an aviator and astronaut. I researched the backgrounds of the astronauts; found most served as military aviators and held degrees in the engineering fields so I determined to follow in their footsteps.

At the age 14, I got a job to pay for flight lessons at the local airport, Burke Lakefront. I soloed at the age of 16 --, two days before I earned my driver�s license! Graduated high school a year early, took an ROTC scholarship to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL and earned my private pilot�s license at the age 17.

I was accepted into the class of 1995 at the United States Military Academy at West  Point.  I applied for Army Aviation, but since I stood only five feet tall, I was told I was too short to be an Army Aviator. I wasn't going to take "no" for an answer and was granted an exception.

After being commissioned from West Point with a degree in Aerospace Engineering, I went to Ft. Rucker, Alabama for flight school where again they told me I was too short to fly. And I was warned that I would likely 'not be successful in flight school' because I would have a hard time controlling the aircraft. A year later, I left Initial Entry Rotary Wing Flight School as an Honor Graduate.

I qualified to fly the AH-64A Apache helicopter. Went to Korea as a Gun Platoon Leader;  served at Ft. Bragg, NC as an Intelligence Officer; and was deployed with my battalion to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Today I am an instructor-pilot for the Apache -- the third US woman to earn this designation. I have been selected to teach Computer Science at West Point, and I'm attending North Carolina State University to prepare for that assignment. My ultimate goal is still to be an Army Astronaut.

While at Ft. Bragg, I met and married 1SG Pete Markow, while we were skydiving.  Pete and I have a two-year-old daughter, Morgan. We currently reside in Fayetteville, North Carolina while I'm attending the university.