Maybe I missed it. In all the posts to this interesting thread, one question I would like to raise.
Where ARE all the women in Helicopter Aviation? What is it about the machine that seems to keep them away? If you are a commercial organisation and about 49% of your target market are un-interested, what are we doing wrong?
A few guesses.
1) Science is still taught as a boy thing at school.
2) Helicopter schools are usually in a small hut or a rugged hangar on the side of a wind blown field. Women's alternative of the golf club with its opulence and style is temptingly attractive.
3) Helicopters are (by daily social standards) noisy. Women are more sensitive to the discomfort of mechanical noise than men. For instance the sound of a passing Huey at full chat might well feel good to most men pilots, but to an average woman outside of aviation it is simply unpleasant noise.
4) Helicopter flying is one of the most tricky motor skills that you have to learn in the world of recreational activities, which might lead to a commercial future. My experience is that women self- select away from such activities thinking that they would not be good at it. They arrive with the baggage of a biased education.
5) There is still a perceived risk or danger to flying. This is also seen in ab initio training of fixed wing pilots where women are seen to avoid sport aviation. Few women are risk tolerant to the myths of this perception and so pursue recreation that is apparently (though not necessarily) safer.
6) The frequent exposure to testosterone overdose when the flying is over for the day. Of the many club and hotel bars that I have visited over the years with helicopter and fixed wing pilots, the company has been wonderful, but the ambience for a woman has varied from boring to threatening.
Any other ideas? As old Mao said, women hold up half the sky, but we cannot seem to interest them into beating it into submission...