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Tag: aviation
  • Delta's WING program aims to encourage more girls to consider careers in aviation; only 6% of commercial pilots currently are women.

    A very special flight designed to inspire future women in aviation flew 120 girls to NASA in celebration of International Girls in Aviation Day! Delta's fifth annual Women Inspiring our Next Generation, or WING, flight was planned and orchestrated by an all-female crew, and even the ramp agents, boarding agents, and operators in the control tower were women. The company hopes that it can help "diversify a male-dominated industry" by encouraging teen girls to consider careers in aviation fields. "We know representation matters. At Delta, we believe you have to see it to be it," says Beth Poole, Delta's general manager of pilot development. "We're taking ownership to improve gender diversity by exposing girls at a young age and providing a pipeline so that 10 years from now, they will be the pilots in the Delta cockpit inspiring generations of women who follow." Continue reading Continue reading

  • Commercial mother-daughter pilot teams are extremely rare in an industry where less than 5% of all commercial pilots are female.

    A mother-daughter pilot team inspired people around the world when they shared the cockpit of a Boeing 757! Captain Wendy Rexon and her daughter, First Officer Kelly Rexon, flew together from Los Angeles to Atlanta in March. When only 6% of commercial pilots in the U.S. and less than 5% globally are female, female pilots are already a rare sight but mother-daughter flight teams are virtually unheard of. Dr. John R. Watret, who took the pilots' photo, observed that such role models are important to encourage young women's interest in aviation: "The first officer had a great role model for becoming a pilot – her mother... It’s good for aviation and inspiring for all of us." Continue reading Continue reading

  • amelia_photo-smallBy Lili Sandler, A Mighty Girl Senior Research Intern

    Amelia Earhart, the aviation pioneer, equal rights activist, and all around courageous heroine for generations of girls and women was born on this day in 1897. An icon of twentieth century bravery — but also that of mystery — Earhart is most well-known as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and to disappear during her attempted flight around the world.

    As a child, Amelia Earhart had little to no interest in airplanes, but filled her days by exploring her neighborhood with her younger sister, reading voraciously, or following and collecting various critters found in her explorations. As a teen, Amelia kept a scrapbook filled with stories of women who were successful in careers dominated by men at the time.

    After working as a nurse’s aide during World War I, Earhart went for her first ride in an airplane in 1920. It was that very flight — only ten minutes long, but that was all it took to change her life — that made Amelia Earhart say: “By the time I got two or three hundred feet off the ground, I knew I had to fly.”

    On January 3, 1921, Amelia Earhart started flying lessons, and six months later, she owned her very own airplane, nicknamed “The Canary”. It was with that plane that she set a world record for female pilots in 1922, being the first to reach an altitude of 14,000 feet. On May 15, 1923, she became the 16th woman to receive a pilot’s license from the Fédération Aèronatique Internationale.

    In April of 1928, Earhart received a phone call asking her if she’d like to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. While she was a passenger and not the the pilot of this June 1928 flight, its news coverage helped to promote her to a level of celebrity, leading to her nicknames of “Lady Lindy” or the “Queen of the Air”. Continue reading Continue reading

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