The aviation industry has transformed how we travel today. With flying being the fastest mode of travel, the demand for pilots and non-pilots has increased. Aviation is a male-dominated industry with approximately 585,000 pilots; women make up only six percent of this number. These women have made advances in the industry and are continuing to do so. Read below to find out more!
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Bessie Coleman
We have to start the list off with this woman who is an icon in the Aviation industry. Bessie Coleman the first black woman ever to fly an airplane and the first African American to earn an international pilot’s license. “In the early 1920s, women pilots were a rarity and black women pilots were a virtual impossibility. But to Coleman, who had read newspaper accounts of aviation heroes and listened with rapt attention to her brother’s wartime tales of French women aviators, a career in flying offered an irresistible challenge. She made up her mind to become an aviator. “ – Encyolpida.com
“From the moment Bessie decided to become a pilot nothing deterred her,” wrote Rich. “The respect and attention she longed for, her need to ‘amount to something,’ were directed at last toward a definite goal. Ignoring all the difficulties of her sex and race, her limited schooling and present occupation, she set off to find a teacher.”
2. Ida Van Smith
In 1967, Ida Van Smith founded a series of flight training clubs for minority children to encourage their involvement in aviation and aerospace sciences. Smith founded the Ida Van Smith Flight Club on Long Island, New York. Training for the students was provided in an aircraft simulator funded by the FAA and an operational Cessna 172. She has published or been featured in many educational, aviation, and historical journals. Smith has received numerous awards for her contributions to aviation and youth education. -Air & Space Museum
3. First Officer Dawn Cook & Captain Stephanie Johnson
These two women made history as they became the first Delta’s first mainline flight with two African-American females in the cockpit. Captain Johnson made her history with Delta last year, as she became their first Black female captain.Johnson also became the first female African-American pilot for Northwest Airlines in 1997.
5. Lt. Col. Merryl Tengesdal
It is one of the hardest aircraft to fly, soaring at altitudes where a change of just a few knots could mean an over-speed or a stall, and landing it is an art form all in itself. The 60-year-old U-2 Dragon Lady program has been a male-dominated one, with just eight women being qualified to fly it, but never an African American woman, until Merryl Tengesdal came along. -Foxtrot Alpha
“I have seen the curvature of the earth. I have seen sights most people will never see. Flying at more than 70,000 ft is really beautiful and peaceful. I enjoy the quiet, hearing myself breathing, and the hum of the engine. I never take it for granted.”
In an industry so small, these women have taken their talents to new heights!