I began my flying life in the early 1970s. Saying that things were different back then would be a major understatement. Some of them seem funny to us now, like the fact that most of our airplanes had no radios or, God forbid, transponders and ELTs, while other facets of the 1970s are tragic.
Kevin: I, too, started flying in the late sixties/early seventies. My experience in Trenton, NJ was that my first chief pilot was a woman. She recently retired at 90 after 50+ years as an examiner (Joan, you were the best!). Nearby were a half dozen airfields where WAC ladies (they were never “ex” WACs.) ran operations.
On our helicopter side of things, the chief pilot was a former military pilot who happened to be a Black pilot but I never heard any mention his race (I miss you Marion. Thanks for all the guidance.).
After 50 years flying I look back fondly on starting in an era and place where the only thing that mattered was professional competence.
Drew Bedson
I too took my private Pilot checkride with Joan. We all thought the world of her. Kevin, you worked with my brother Jeff Humbles back then. I have great memories of flying with my brother delivering checks at night in a twin. What an experience for a newly minted private pilot!
I’m sorry I meant to write Drew instead of Kevin.
Well, i agree obviously, but where my hair gets raised is the hypocrisy and double-standards, most often from the girly side. When it comes to having women on corporate boards or in government, you often hear things like "we offer a different perspective " “we add xyz” “we see things differently”. Well how so ? Read between the lines and what they are sayi g themselves sounds like : we have more empathy, we aren’t purely fact driving and take more arguments into consideration. Not sure if that is true or not. But you cannot have it both ways : same or not same. If they are indeed less methodical, well then… If not, well then dont use any arguments to wriggle your way to the front of the queue. I am happy to fly with any crew as long as i can rely on a process that uses performance as its only criterium. That said : just because someone reporys on the crew and their backgrounds, diesnt mean its a bad thing. I thought that knowledge was useful in Gulf Air crash, in EK521, in Colgan Air. Now just because its a girl the whole world gets upset ? Bringing the facts out should not be an issue. Drawi g the wrong coclusions, now there it gets tricky : we only know what conclusions turn out to be wrong/right in a few years. So much as it too early to call them right, so it is too early to call them wrong.
Is this the Ransome Chief Pilot Drew Bedson? If so, hope your career went well after Ransome. I finished mine at Atlas . We had a mix of ladies there, some excellent, some good, a very few that were …
Dave Cliff
If, after a tragic crash, the first thing people focus on is the race or gender of the pilots, it is an indication that aviation may have come a long way, but as human beings, we have a lot of work left to do.
Kevin, I appreciate your focus on the idiocy of discrimination, but let’s be fair about this; most people aren’t focusing on gender or race for the sake of hatred or bigotry. The focus is on qualification and merit, and it highlights the insidious evil of discriminatory DEI policies. As long as traits having nothing to do with merit and qualification are on the list of selection criteria there will always be questions whether a given person attained a given position based on merit or simply due to their group identity.
Traits like gender or race do not belong among the selection criteria for positions that require the utmost qualifications. As you note, Kevin, these people worked their tails off to get where they are, and they don’t deserve the kind of doubt and scrutiny DEI policies engender.
Kevin, I cannot tell you how welcome it is to see your words on the front page of Avweb.
What our current American moment has unveiled is bigotry. Plain and simple. I’m sure it’s been there forever, but in the past it was, at least, impolite to publicly doubt the competence of a trained professional just because of their genitals or melanin levels. No longer. This ugliness is out in the open, and it’s a scourge on a healthy society.
Make no mistake, pilots. If there is a woman on the flight deck, she has had to fight longer and harder to get there than her male counterparts. Period. She has had to be excellent, all the time, no exceptions. DEI, if it accomplished anything, meant an HR person somewhere looked at her resume for an extra five seconds. That’s it. After that, she has had to endure constant harassment, denigration, and skepticism, constantly under the microscope, with no small number of her colleagues constantly looking over her shoulder, eager for her to make a mistake so they can say, “SEE!!!” If she has prevailed in that environment, it is because of her excellence.
Nobody is getting a short cut onto a flight deck and if you really think that’s happening you are the victim of dangerous conspiracy nonsense and you need to turn off the damn TV. The test is the same, regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman or black or purple or gay or a robot. You pass the test, and then the training is the same, regardless. The standards are the same. The requirements are the same. A pilot is deemed competent or not and I promise you - I PROMISE you - that not a single DPE in this country is going, “Well, her short field landing was long, but, she is a girl, so, PASS.”
It is time for men (and I am one of them) and pilots (and I am one of them) to look in the mirror. We are grasping at straws, foaming at the mouth, desperate to find any excuse to kick women and minorities back out of the flight deck. Why? What is motivating that bigotry? Be honest with yourself. It’s going to hurt. That’s good. Pain is bullshit leaving the body.
Be more decent.
Well, I suppose it all depends on one’s experiences. If you flew in Florida in the 70s, you were probably surrounded mostly by transplants from the North. Southerners back then - I was flying as a teenager in Alabama back then - were still struggling to make it after the devastation of the War of Northern Aggression. We read about bigotry in our history books, but in daily life it was a thing of the past. When I worked as an engineer in Detroit in the late 70s, it was in one’s face, and from both sides. The calendars you mention were commonplace in our shop in Michigan, but not in Alabama. In the South back then, most women were still women, focused on supporting their young families. Men were still men, focused on supporting their wives. Divorce was rare and people judged each other on their character and accomplishments, not their skin color or chromosomes. And yes, there were many female & black pilots but they did not make a big deal of it, nor did they expect to be treated differently or get some kind of handout. Thankfully we now have an administration that is working to stamp out DEI for good, and that is great news for aviation. As far as the South is concerned, I have yet to meet any of the many transplants from the North or West Coast who do not love it here, thanks to Southern traditions of kindness, honesty, family, faith, and hard work.
Thank you Kevin for a much needed statement.
Frank: Please give Jeff my best regards. I look back fondly at my time at Ronson. It was a great place to start a career that gave me certificates from the US, UK, France, Canada, & Australia, flight test training from British Aerospace and Aerospatiale/ATR (and factory flight test work for both) and examining authority in the US, UK, France, Canada, and Australia. I moved into the head shed and finished up as COO of a number of varied aircarriers and corporate operations. Drew
Dave: Yes it is. I am pleased that you found some level of stability post Pan Am. I am hopeful that you are still actively flying. After a bout with Fuch’s Dystrophy I have new corneas and lenses but no medical or glasses. I fly occasionally and still maintain my CFI (50 years now). Drew
At the airlines, DEI means introducing the almost foreign concept of becoming a pilot to underrepresented groups and inviting them to try.
If they show interest and meet qualifications, they are invited to apply.
If they get past screening they are invited to train.
If they get past flight simulator training and the several validation and evaluation gates, they are allowed to go to OE.
If the line check pilot finds their performance satisfactory, they are released to the line.
At no time during this journey are they held to a lesser standard. The judgement of numerous instructors, evaluators and line check pilots is never questioned if someone doesn’t pass.
Lastly, if you look at the group photos of the new hire classes, it’s a sea of white males with only 2 or 3 women and maybe one or two people of color. Everybody needs to calm down.
For about a century airlines have been a giant DEI exercise to benefit white males with white military males at the top of the heap, so this is not a NEW thing to worry about.
It’s naive to think that it’s not likely that an older male instructor or DPE would find it emotionally difficult to disappoint or discourage an attractive young woman who is not quite up to standards. So they enjoy the applicant’s joyful smile and photo of them holding their temporary certificate knowing that 1) their “toxic masculinity” didn’t hinder a female pilots ambitions and 2) if she struggles now, she likely won’t pass down the road, but that’s another DPE or check airman’s problem to deal with.
No one should be discriminated against and not all pilots see the profession like Ernest Gann and that’s OK. The drive to succeed means you demand the best from yourself. Honest assessment means you can perform to the standard. And maturity means you know yourself well enough to know that others helped you out along the way and you should do the same for those coming behind you regardless of race or gender.
We are in the twilight of the piloting profession. Let’s go out with class.
Why my daddy used to say… I can hear it now… What a boatload of nonsense.
Nobody thinks the old south is the way forward. Unless of course…
Then you probably are not from the South.
It is insulting is what it is. I had female students that could easily got jobs as Victoria’'s Secret models. Being pretty got them nowhere with flying, they had to fly to my standards to get signed off to do anything. I was no where near so hard up for a smile from a girl I would risk their lives and my hard earned license to let them slide. Is aviation REALLY so full of dull witted horny men that any decent looking woman just smiles and bats here eyes for a rating?
Drew
Enjoyed flying the Classic Whale (100/200/300). DO wanted me to go to the 400 but I didn’t like the “culture” there. Last flight in June 09. Did get SIC in the DC-8 with Samaritans Purse but no real stick time. Several friends wanted me to go to the FAA but they wanted me to spend my money on several ratings… not happening.
Be Well!
Dave