Flying Instructors & ExaminersA place for instructors to communicate with one another because some of them get a bit tired of the attitude that instructing is the lowest form of aviation, as seems to prevail on some of the other forums!
Hi, Am doing the FI rating next year. Ultimately, perhaps when times are better, would like to set up my own school.
We were just chatting about this idea here at work. The idea would be for a women only flying school. Along the same lines, and for similar reasons.."Learn to fly without being oggled at" ;-)
And if we had a men only flying school that would be sexist and we would have women chaining themselves to the gates moaning about men being sexist pigs........
I take it when you say "ogled at", it is because men still find it a little strange that women are pilots/learning to fly as opposed to the fact that they are attractive?
No offence to females out there but the only ones worth looking at in the industry are the ones serving me coffee.
Good idea and I see your point as I currently have a female student and there is usually a crowd whistling at her as she does the pre-flight!
But of the 3000 or so hours that my school flies a year I'd say that only about 100 of those hours are flown by women, so I think you would be limiting your market quite a bit.
Student female pilots with ambitions for commercial employment may be asked some pretty strong questions as to why they saw fit to alienate themselves and why they couldn't fit in. Considering the majority of pilots they will work with in the future are men, I'm guessing they wouldn't do too well during interviews.
Even if you set up a "womens only" flight school I think you'll find that these things will still occur, if not by members of said club due to it been female only but outside on the apron, unless you want to make a womens only airport?! I highly doubt a womens only flight school will survive very long as there still aren't that many women pilots about and surely not enough to sustain a fully functioning flying school. Out of the flying clubs i've been to I think there have been around 3 members that were women whom regularly flew... I'm pretty sure they don't get whilsted or ogled at whilst they preflight and are tret with as much respect as the male members.
I'm sure I remember those adverts from ages ago where a woman is seen engaging in all usually activities (ironing, washing, cleaning) without any discomfort due to "wings".
I really should stop now. My comments belong on JB.
Nothing wrong with setting up a first women-only flying operation (in fact I admire your courage and determination) but when it relegates to "the first lady to fly to Greenland in a single-piloted turbocharged twin-engined aircraft under 5700 kgs during the summer under VFR rules minus GPS and routing via the Arctic Circle without refuelling", that's really bl**dy annoying.
Excellent idea!!!
You MUST be a Genius!!!
And this is the best time to open a school that is fussy choosing students!!!
If you don't do that, PLEASE, let us know where you're going to work!!!
We will avoid the airspace!
I mean it!
I'll join your flying school if you pay for my hours building/MER CPL/Instructor rating and you can always throw in an IR if you like ... thanks! When do I start?!
1. Reading your original post, I have the feeling you were hoping for a serious response, which clearly you have not received from anybody. So let me try.
2. First of all, assuming such an establishment would not infringe gender equality legislation, (which is subject to doubt,) I have serious doubts whether, either a women only flying school, or a women only flying club, would be financially viable. Women pilots make up only a tiny percentage (is it 6%?) of the total flying establishment, and women student pilots would probably constitute only the same percentage of the student pilot population.
3. If a women only formula would work anywhere, however, that place would be the London fringe, as flying establishments in these locations seem to have fared best in the current recession with mostly little shortage of students.
4. It is not really clear why you would wish to see such an establishment in operation. Is it purely a question of women being able to train without being 'oggled at'?
5. Or is it the more substantial motive of ensuring that women students do not have to cope with male instructors, a few of whom may be inclined to bully them or try to 'put them down'? (I had one like this and he cost me dear. The club didn't even notice what a prize arsehole he was until shortly before he left and had done a lot of damage).
6. Or would there be better ground training arrangements to assist women students to cope with the more technical subjects (such as engines), which most of them will have little previous experience of? (Apparently, even the RAF had to simplify the teaching of technical subjects when they introduced women pilots).
7. If your reasoning follows my comments in paras 5. and 6. above, then I would argue that there are not a few male student pilots that would also benefit from this approach, and perhaps all that is needed is a school/club that caters for both sexes but where the management is extra vigilant regarding its selection of instructing staff and the treatment of its students.
8. As a useful addition, perhaps one very experienced instructor, other than the CFI, could be appointed as student mentor to whom any student, male or female, could turn if he/she felt his/her relationship with his/her instructor was unsatisfactory.
Broomstick - nice post. BUT in reference to para 4 and previous posters:
Can some please explain this "oggling".
Is there that many female pilots out there who 1. Do have the characterstics to be "oggled at" and 2. Do they actually care.
I have 10 years in aviation. Training across the world and flying around the world. In those 10 years, I have yet to find a female pilot/trainee worth oggling at. Are they all hidden away flying Exec jets?
