Females only!
 

I'm doing an extended project on Women in Aviation specifically “How are women represented in the aviation industry and is this regarded positively?” and I am researching the topic. (This includes mechanics, air traffic controllers as well as pilots)I have found lots of male opinions on the subject from war times and some on present day. Many are negative with reasons such as 'women aren't capable of flying' to 'women should be stay at home mothers'. Obviously there are lots of positive opinions as well.
But, I want to know what women think about women flying. Have you found any problems in achieving your role of a pilot (if you've done that) or prejudice in training or actually in your job? Are males and females equally supportive of you? What were your views of the aviation industry before you joined and were they proved right? Do you think women in the 1930's and during the war had positive impacts on the aviation industry? Is there anything else you'd like to say that may help with my question? :)
I guess males can answer too, if they feel so inclined.
Thanks :)

As a mere male I always love to hear a female voice on the radio whether it be ATC or another pilot.
Bring it on I say...

If you want some answers I would suggest you re-post on the professional forums too - ATC issues, Mil, Biz etc

ap

Hannah, you don't need the apostrophe. It should be "Females only!":ok:

Anyway good luck with the project. My experience is that aviation is one industry where females are more likely to be accepted than average - always there will be exceptions to that of course. Though attitudes across many sectors have improved enormously in the last 30 years - so you will need to judge the opinions you get in terms of the time scale to which they apply.

My opinion can be safely ignored if you like cos I'm male and old school;)

H

Hannah222, I recommend that you get in touch with the British Women Pilots Association at [email protected] .

A very enthusiastic group who would undoubtedly point you in the right direction.

Hannah,

The person who has most impressed me in my career was a former ATA pilot, Joan Hughes. I spent a fantastic summer being trained by her in PA28s for an Assistant Instructor's Rating. She was inspirational - simple as that.

Years later, I had occasion to fly with, and carry out simulator check/refreshers on several female First Officers on long-haul jet aircraft. In my own experience, the lady pilots were universally professional, personable, and technically very good indeed. Maybe my two fleets were lucky, but I heard much the same from pals on shorthaul fleets.

Perhaps the ladies were so good because they had 'tried harder' to get into the business - I don't know. Heaven knows, most of us blokes found it difficult.

The most common fear I heard from older pilots before the first ladies arrived in the airline was that a woman of slight stature would be unable to 'hold' a heavy jet straight following an engine failure at rotation. Goodness knows how many times I saw that in the simulator, but I never saw a problem at all.

It is perhaps because of the ATA pilots, like Joan, that even the 'old' wartime pilots did not seem to be prejudiced in any way. My generation certainly were not (born 1950! :E).

Ladies Love Taildraggers
 

All the lady instructors I’ve flown with over the years have been very good, both as pilots and for their ability to instruct.

Some of the ladies on this website are in the commercial side of aviation, although as the name suggest, that’s not the focus of the group.

Aileron Drag mentioned the ATA - if you can find the TV documentary that was shown earlier in the year about their lady pilots, it's well worth a watch.

They showed astonishing skill - often single-handedly flying heavy bombers with no prior type training other than reading the handbook, often in marginal weather. Nearly as impressive is the modesty of those interviewed so many years later, who saw it as just "doing their bit". It's impossible to imagine racking up so many type in your logbook with so little conversion training, crew support etc these days. Humbling (and inspiring) stuff.

And from a modern perspective (I'm a bloke by the way!), the radio is a great leveller - you can tell if the pilot or ATC is male or female, but that's about it. You can't tell age or appearance, and you have no idea of skills - the person could have 50 hours or 5,000 hours experience, the pilot could be Captain or FO; the ATCO could be a trainee or have 30 years experience etc., so assumptions based on gender seem to be fortunately rare (at least at the operational end).

male here:

first off, what is an "assistant instructor rating"?

second...I've never flown with a woman pilot who was as good as the best men pilots

but...some were good pilots, just not great.

that doesn't mean there aren't great women pilots out there, I just haven't met one in 37 years of aviation.

oh, and I've flown with plenty of mediocre guy pilots too.

But there is one thing I do object to...when I see a woman get hired with "x" number of flying hours and needs to go through training 3 times, and a man with "2X" hours gets hired and only has to go through training once.

Its a pre JAR British instructors rating which meant you had to be supervised and couldn't send student solo for the first time for circuits, nav or night.

They then after getting a certain number of hours did the course on teaching instruments then they sat a flights test and ground pratical teaching test and became full FI's with no restrictions and able to operate unsupervised.

In addition to the bwpa, I'd recommend speaking to the Royal Aeronautical Society. They recently ran an entire conference about excellence in all fields of aviation, almost exclusively attended by women.

Personally, I've always worked in male dominated environments and have never experienced a problem. I work hard and play hard, as simple as that. I've been lucky enough to do some pretty cool, pretty privileged flying in very male dominated arenas. But I don't think there should be "more women", just that those who really want to fly should be encouraged to get over any of their own preconceived ideas that they couldn't or shouldn't.

Fact is that a lot of women aren't interested, and genetically tend to be less strong in the skills that are required as a pilot. That tendency doesn't mean that everyone is that way inclined, in the same way as mathematics and computer science are male dominated as a result of the same tendencies. The world's first computer programmer was a woman and there are plenty of very fine female mathematicians, just not as many as men.

As for other female pilots, I respect them in the same way as I respect all pilots, on merit alone. If they've worked hard and know what they're doing, and fly with a professional attitude and true knowledge, that's great. If they make silly excuses for bad decisions / actions, or shirk responsibilities such as cleaning the aeroplane, refuelling or even getting them in and out of the hangar, then they gain less respect. But the same applies for men as for women.

I have several friends who are women pilots who I have the greatest admiration for. I also have several male pilot friends for whom I have similarly great respect and admiration. I consider myself lucky to be in this position. My best mate since high school is an engineer. I also know several pilots, mostly male, for whom I have much less respect. This is more often on the basis of testosterone fuelled decision making, which explains the more male representation of this group. Plus it should also be borne in mind that for every exceptional pilot, there are dozens of merely mediocre pilots. This is the case particularly in light aviation but even in commercial aviation there are very few truly awesome pilots. I don't consider myself to be one of them, although I always strive to be the very best that I can be.

I also have some light aircraft engineering experience and perform air/ground duties as well as Airfield Fire Service duties so I am aware that I'm probably not the most usual candidate. I have the same experience and feelings about colleagues in these fields as I do with pilots.

The main difference I find as a woman is that people tend to remember you more, simply because in a room full of men you're bound to stand out. This can work as both a positive and a negative.

Hope this helps.

Mostly good!
 

Thirty years in this business and counting, so far only one really bad femail.

On the whole all ( but one) the women that I have worked with have been well above average both in professional skills and ease to work with, this includes a number of Avionic technicians and only one airframe & engine technician.

I wish the numbers were so good for the men, the worst of who had ego's the size of a small planet.

Power or gliding? In UK gliding an AI can teach all the flying, send students solo, but has to be supervised by a full cat - a full instructor. Of course the EASA stuff will change it all...

Aviation would be a sadder place without them :cool:

Here's one who flies better than I ever will.

Male here;

I feel that any industry benefits from a mixed work force.
Mixed not as in 1:100 but 50:50.
And not in menial positions either, 50/50 across the board.
Even though I'm probably a chauvinist pig deep inside I hate that 'men-only workplace' environment.

Thanks Guys! Taybird, quite sure you were the only female response so far!
I do maths and physics a level and both have about 4 girls to 12 guys and at the airfield today I was one of 2 females so yeah maybe girls are usually less interested in the maths side of it.
I've been tallying male to female atc conversations (from America as we can't listen here?) and the number of males speaking on the radio is probably 10 times more every time! Though quite a few female air traffic controllers (apparently we're good at multitasking!). How about engineers? I'm guessing still very male dominated?
Those who say they've had excellent female company, is that because women have to be so much better than men to get a job in the first place, so no average women pilots? or because we're just good?
I read a bit about the ww2 pilots, WASPS and ATA, and how they were flying heavier aircraft all the time but then one general said they couldn't fly transatlantic and that stopped women progressing aircraft type.
Do you really think 50.50 is the best thing? I think so.
Also, would you find women distracting in the cockpit for 8 hours? One comment from March on here and I think I'm ignoring him!
Oh and Heston, I don't think I have an apostrophe, and AP thanks I'll repost somewhere else.
Any more girls on pprune?

I’ve been debating whether to reply to this thread or not, I’mnever really sure how to respond. I have a background inengineering/physics and yes it was very male dominated when I started off butapart from one ******** professor I don’t ever recall gender being an issue.

Same with flying, I happen to have a male instructor, myhusband happened to have a female one. I’ve never really noticed that mybreasts* or lack of Y chromosome ever being an issue, for me or the people atthe flying school.

Questions like this make me a little bit sad. I’d kind ofassumed that things have moved on to the point where such questions are noteven relevant any more. Do pilots really judge someone by gender any more? Youneed a certain degree of intelligence to be involved in the aviation industryas a pilot or engineer etc. Usually** that precludes most irrational prejudices,in fact I’d go as far as to say this is one of the few industries where it is blatantlyobvious if you are any good or not. I suspect that is the real yardstick bywhich people are judged regardless of gender. Or am I just wildly naïve andoptimistic ?



* I did once land so hard I bounced my wire out my bra andnear stabbed myself in the eye!

** Usual caveats apply!

I've never been made to feel anything less than welcome in any part of aviation.

My background is engineering and computer programming so I'm well used to male dominated environments and don't mind a bit of banter. Mostly I run the business/financial side of an aviation business but I'm licenced to fly everything on the fleet (even if I don't do it as much as I'd like) and find it helps to understand the basics.

Pilots and aircraft owners are always pleased when anyone (at all) shows an interest in their hobby/job/beloved toy and I've been offered some great flights in lovely aircraft all over the world.

I've met female pilots and female engineers but can't think of any female avionics technicians........I'm sure there are some out there. Female aircraft dealers, traffic controllers, line staff.......

I don't think there's any malice in the low numbers of females in aviation; it's just that most women never consider it an option. The more we introduce ladies to aircraft the more of them come to work with us.

And probably a damn sight better looking....

Hannah, You're not the Hannah who flew in an Auster with the Auster club chairman at a young Eagles event by any chance?

Hello Hannah,

I am a female Student pilot learning in a male dominated club, and there are only three female pilots, all of us students! For much of my time with the club, I ahev been the only female member.


I am learning to fly purely as a hobby (although I may decide on a career change to instruct, but thats further down the line!) Its been my ambition to learn to fly and all the chaps in the club have been really welcoming (well, except one old duffer).

I think the chaps tend to respect female pilots if they are willing to muck in with EVERYTHING. As Taybird says, with cleaning aircraft, refuelling, checks, cleaning and opening the hangar etc. Also, form my perspective, I am willing to learn from ANYONE and I will privately filter out anything which i think is gung ho etc.

I also have worked all my career in a male dominated environment and as Margaret Thatcher said (and I love this quote, sorry you non-Thatcherites) she said that for a woman to get on in a man's world, we have to be twice as good as the men....and I tend to agree.

I think maybe perhaps females think that aviation is a male area only. The problem is that there are so many ingrained issues in the minds of both men and women that they will take a long time to resolve.

two true brilliant stories from the ATA. One, female spitfire pilot had to make a forced landing in a field of cows....she stayed INSIDE her aircraft as she preferred taking her chances with the possibility of an exploding fuel tank, rather than take her chances with the cattle!

The other, a female |ATA pilot landed a Lancaster at an airfield, the chaps surrounded her and asked where the pilot was...she replied that she was the pilot and they were all amazed that she could ahve handled such a large aircraft!

Well, hope that helps, and good luck wth the project. PM me if you want to know anything more.

GQ

Hannah, it doesn't make any difference at all. If there is a lack of women pilots it must be because they are not attracted to learning to fly for some reason. I have met women pilots and instructors and they have been exactly on the same level as men.

I was shocked when I saw this bit of news a few years ago:

British Airways' first female pilot has been selected to fly the first plane to land at Heathrow's new Terminal 5.
Capt. Lynn Barton, 51, became BA's first woman pilot in 1987.

Basically because it was a recently as 1987 when BA never had a female pilot!

I remember being at university in the late 70s and early 80s and - although I had quite a few friends very active in women's groups - never thought that a major airline didn't have female pilots.

The biggest hurdle is that few people wish to the first - they may wish like heck to be a (whatever) but if they would be the first (whatever) then it also throws up too many other hurdles. Such as: promotion prospects possible being poor because you will, obviously, be under greater scrutiny and you will have to disrupt the existing long-established hierarchy.

So I was really pleased the other week on one of my rare commercial flights to find the flight deck was all-female.

But the clear career paths now available - there were even getting near an even number of female pilots as male pilots in the Bush Pilots series - the big question is why still so few women in aviation.

Even in sport flying, about 3or 4% of the British Microlight Aircraft Association members are female.

Maybe it is the very male smell in the toilets!

Whatever, I wish you all the luck with your research.

Aviation would be a far better place with at least 50 per cent more pilots - which is what we would have if we had more female students, to start with.

hmmmm?
 

"a woman to get on in a man's world, we have to be twice as good as the
men....and I tend to agree."


well, I can't imagine anyone,male or female, being twice the pilot Lindbergh, Wilbur and Orville, James Doolitle is/was.

I think this statement is really absurd. And I do like Margaret Thatcher.

I think the statement is equally absurd when applied to people of color.

Judge each pilot on his/her own merits. But in order to truly judge someone, your own knowledge must be very, very good.

Hannah, bear in mind that you may not get women who have experienced discrimination, sexism, "banter" - in any area of life, not just in aviation - to rush forward and post about it publicly.

Much of it is still dismissed as just the "lads having a laugh". And women quickly learn they better fit in and laugh at it, too. Or be prepared to be told they have "no sense of humour", or should "give as good as they get" :yuk:

Happily, the "banter" seems to come from a minority, but a very vocal minority.

But I'm not sure I understand how - in 2011 - British Airways can still get away with this type of advert :sad:

British Airways Advert 2011

Hannah, you are welcome to scrutinise my previous posts on prune.

I began flying at High Wycombe in a glider, aged 50, already had children, foster children, grandchildren.

Now have more than 3,000 hours, IR, 3 diamonds, seaplane rating, glider instructor, and Tugmaster at my gliding club, and represented the UK in the first Women's European Gliding Championship in the USSR - before that political arrangement went down the proverbial....

I fly for fun, nobody ever saw fit to pay me a salary, alas....but never suffered from disrespect. However I do not think women should waste their childbearing years becoming airline pilots, or in fact taking on any other business career that is less important than having a family! So there.
Old commercial pilots, men that is, thrice divorced, bitter and twisted from being disrespected by the airline beancounters, spending nights away with hostile cabin crew in basic hotel accomodation, and unable to hone their true flying skills, being forbidden to fly without using the autopilot in nearly every modern airliner, where's the fun in that?

Men are useful for heavy lifting and getting dirty and covered in grease. But women live longer.

Care to explain why FlyingLapinou?

"the big question is why still so few women in aviation."

Is it the big question? I thought it was fairly obvious - the majority of women simply aren't interested. There's no disputing that on the whole, certain genders tend more toward the skills needed for certain careers, and while I'm sure its a lot less of a 'thing' than it was even 30 years ago when I was a kiddie, there's still an element of social conformity to roles. 8 year old me liked planes, people would suggest I become a flight attendant, not a pilot.

Hit one of those 'is your brain male or female' tests and I bet all the women pilots and engineers are veering into the 'male' category. I did one a while back and found myself 25% into 'male' while the average for women is 50% into 'female'. So I'm rubbish at having an emotional conversation but pretty handy at reverse parking. :)

I would hate to see the aviation world striving for 50:50 representation of the sexes - if you're interested, do it. If you're not, don't bother. There's nothing worse than forced equality. If you need it handed to you on a plate, through special recruitment schemes or targeted advertising, you didn't want it badly enough in the first place.

Likewise women in politics, the fire service, men in midwifery....

The whole tedious gender debate in a nutshell. Love it! :ok:

piperarcher

I think its more of a testosterone thing its a very male thing flying an aircraft guns blazing! The Hero which in turn makes the male more attractive to the female.
Same thing with hot cars :E
You get the picture:ok: a leather jacket sporting a pair of raybans the top gun syndrome.
Boys with their Toys thing.
Women tend to fly more for the love of aviation minus the testosterone factor.
I do not think money really comes into it in this day and age.

Pace

lets face it , pilots will talk incessantly about flying to ANYONE who'll listen! They don't care if the audience is male or female :p

I have to make a concerted effort not to talk about flying to non flying friends, it must bore them as much as cars and dogs bore me.

As to why there aren't more women in flying, what does it matter? There's nothing to stop anyone learning to fly with the requisite brain cells, I can't see it being anything other than they just aren't as interested.

The days of flying being intense physical work are long gone.
If a woman can be a supervisor or run a business she can run a crew and fly an airplane.
Traditional role models still play a factor as does the male-female brain thing.
However not a good enough reason to not promote it among girls/women as a career choice.

Presumably they get away with the advert because flying really was predominantly a male career in those days, though there were plenty of women pioneers (Amelia Earhardt, Hanna Reitsch etc...) who flew recreationally or to break records, and whose skills were recognised in their own time. It would have been silly if they'd rewritten history to have a woman pilot carrying passengers on the Rapide, though it wouldn't have hurt them to shown a lady flying the more modern airliners.

My impression is that aviation isn't as enlightened as it sometimes seems to think it is. There's certainly a fair amount of sexist banter in club rooms, though probably most female pilots don't get to hear much of it.

Interestingly, I get the impression that there's now quite a high proportion of female commercial pilots coming through training, whereas relatively few women seem to train for a vanilla PPL. It would be interesting to see some numbers.

Does it require a rating or any PPL can fly it?

Rwy in Sight

Mary, that frankly was a superb post. In fact, possibly the most honest and correct thing I have read recently on Pprune. Five stars for that one:ok:

We live in a pretty non sensical world nowadays. Everyone skirting about the edges in what is ' the correct thing to say', our, 'ever so PC world'.

I watch women strive for it all, the 'we must have everything brigade'. Dumping the six month old at the nursery, from 7 in the morning, to 5 at night. Children, quite frankly, devoid of love and attention, devoid of any normality in their life's, from a very early age.

Then they sit and wonder why it all goes pear shaped. My view is that if women want a career, go for it. They can be anything they want to be, but do not have kids. It is not just aviation, women today can strive for it, and in a lot of cases, are better than men, in their particular career choice. The issues arrive when that good old animal, maternal instinct kicks in. But I want a child.

We are what we are, a higher level of animal, with all of our age old natural instincts still in the system, in our DNA.

Friend (female), is about to have a baby, then immediately onto A380 course. That is going to work me thinks........Not.

Titter ye may.....OO-er, Sorry, girls.

Dont, snigger any longer,men, doesn't it strike you as odd, that Bakers Professional Chefs, launderette operators, Professional cleaning and Valeting companies and Window cleaners.................................................


ARE PREDOMINANTLY MALE!!!!!
Truth is, GENERALLY, women are the hard-wired homemaking nurturers, men are the macho hunter-gatherer-protectors.
At school in the early 60's I queried the stereotypical curriculum.....boys had metalwork,woodwork and Technical Drawing, the girls did Domestic Science (cooking) neddlework and shorthand/typing......even though there were males who would gravitate toward the afore -mentioned "male" industries and male Clerks were commonplace, training was NOT an option in school...how enlightened.....NOT.

Come the 80's my sons were given school-lessons in the basics...came the "baking cakes next time , so bring an egg and a packet of cake-mix"..No. 2 wrote out the recipe, knocked up a sponge cake and the following morning shoved it under "teacher's" nose with , "THAT'S HOW YOU MAKE A BLOODY CAKE, BYE BYE"...went off to "play" computers.

IMHO, Gender is totally irelevant...daughter had a colleague who arrived late due to his "hot hatch" car being extremely reluctant to start...she offered to "have a look" and sorted it in 5 minutes,much to that Asian male's astonishment...'cos girls didn't "do" mechanical or electrical in his culture!

That would be about 10 years ago......has it changed?

Used to be an attractive Blonde driving a Skip-lorry in Oldham....the people who rented skips just to ogle her, soon learned to respect her because SHE COULD DO THE JOB COMPETENTLY....that was about 20 years ago.

Just as the male midwife has to prove himself in a mainly Female profession, so with females in a "male" environment

truth of the matter is the exception stands out in ANY field and their peers will judge them on their ability, pure and simple.

I've had much better luck with female instructors during my training days than anything else. I just tend to get along with them better and learn more. The cockpit is much calmer and less willy-waving. Damn fine pilots all of them, too. And every time I hear a female captain (it's not often) over the tannoy, I smile a little, knowing they've come a slightly longer way than their male counterparts. I appreciate the hard work it took to get there. I tip my hat off to them for breaking stereotypes and moulds.