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Shifting the Narrative
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BY leah Bethea photos BY MarYllis wolfgang
NARRATIvEShifting the
local airport initiative aims to get more young women active in aviation field
Just 7% of all commercial pilots are female.
But through education and opportunity, local aviation leaders are hoping to change that statistic. Organizers took a first step toward the goal last October when the first-ever Gift of Flight Experience for Women was held at the Baldwin County Regional Airport. Organized by Sinclair Aviation, the Baldwin County Regional Airport community and Faithful Gaudian Flight School, with support of the Brock Foundation, the day focused on education of women and “influencers” such as school administrators, counselors and parents about career options within the field of aviation.
“it’s easy for a man to go out there and say, ‘hey, women can fly airplanes,’ but if they can see women doing it, i think it definitely opened their eyes to see that there are people like them in the industry doing things that are male-dominated, so we were happy to depict that.”
“We showed them that there was a career path in aviation,” says Bruce Hood, manager of the Baldwin County Regional Airport. “We’re trying to open their eyes to the fact that the career path is not only flying but, of course, anything to do with aviation.” During the event, the young women were able to take part in question and answer sessions with pilots, instructors, flight attendants, educators and representatives from women’s aviation organizations. The day also included a tour of the airport involving planes, maintenance and operations, and the day ended with a half-hour flight in which students were able to fly the airplane with guidance from a female flight instructor. “Representation is key, so what we wanted to do was have them see people that look like them – females that are in the profession,” says Lyndon Lamot, chief pilot with
Faithful Guardian. “It’s easy for a man to go out there and say, ‘Hey, women can fly airplanes,’ but if they can see women doing it, I think it definitely opened their eyes to see that there are people like them in the industry doing things that are male-dominated, so we were happy to depict that.”
Expenses for the event were covered through donations, so the day was free to participants.
Allen Simmons, assistant principal at Georgia Military College Prep in Milledgeville, attended the class with his daughter, Madilynn, 14.
“I have always been interested in flying, and I never had the opportunity at her age to be involved in it,” he says. “When I heard about this opportunity, I knew it was a chance to expose my daughter to something many other girls her age would not have the chance to do.”
Madilynn was able to pilot a plane with a female instructor with her dad along for the ride.
“I decided to participate in this class because I thought it would be an amazing opportunity for me,” she says. “I would definitely consider a career in aviation.”
That spark of interest was something Simmons had hoped for when he signed his daughter up for the event. Getting to have the experience with her is something he will never forget.
“It meant the world,” he says. “Anytime you get to experience something with your children and see them learn new things, it is amazing. Being able to take pictures and videos in the back of a plane while she had the controls was amazing.”
Jim Wolfgang, chairman of the Baldwin County Airport Advisory Committee, says there is a growing national push focused on increasing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) concepts in K-12 schools. Two of the biggest focuses of that are women in aviation and minorities in aviation. The advisory committee has been working with local schools to introduce aviation as a potential career path. The event last fall fell in line perfectly with that initiative as students
“A woman can drive just like a man can… so they should be EQuALLY QuALIFIED to go fly an airplane.”
participated from local high schools as well as teachers, parents, principals and counselors.
Wolfgang says the best part of the day was seeing a transformation in the students within just a few hours of going from someone interested in aviation to someone excited about the potential of an aviation career. Wolfgang says that he believes women have just as much to offer to the field of aviation as men do, and part of the draw to this event was providing them with role models they can look up to along the way.
“I think that for so long, traditionally or stereotypically, women haven’t been pilots,” he says. “A lot of that goes back to the old days of strength needed, etc. because the old planes weren’t like they are now. … In general, aviation, as negative as it sounds now, it was a good old boys club kind of thing, and there wasn’t the opportunity, the encouragement, the role models to do that.”
Hood says the aviation field involves much more than flying, as jobs are needed to be filled in airport management, aircraft management and maintenance among many other areas. Specifically, there is a void in flying right now, though, due to an older generation of pilots retiring. He says he hopes opportunities like the Gift of Flight class will be a part of filling that void, and he says it’s something organizers definitely plan to do again. A few of the students have even come back to pursue a pilot’s license, and others have heard about the opportunities and visited the airport to talk with leaders about pursuing a career in the field.
For Hood, the most enjoyable part of the class was seeing the expression on the young women’s faces when it began to hit home that there was a career path out there for them that they didn’t know existed before the day began.
“In the industry today, if you look at it as a whole, there’s a big imbalance between women and men in aviation…,” he says. “A woman can drive just like a man can… so they should be equally qualified to go fly an airplane.”
