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Being a Pro Pilot and a Woman, Then and Now
Regarding the Washington Post article “‘Sully was just a hero. Why label the Southwest captain a ‘female pilot?’” … because it’s interesting and newsworthy. Sorry, not sorry. I’m glad she’s getting a ton of publicity and I hope girls who want to fly are noticing.
Like the author of the article, I too belong to The Ninety-Nines, an international organization of women pilots. My mother was my flight instructor when I got my license at age 19. Much more interesting and newsworthy than that is how my mother became a pro pilot in 1962.
My mother, Gene Nora Stumbough Jessen, had thousands of hours flight instructing at the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University under her belt when she was hired by Beechcraft to help demo the new baby Beech, the Musketeer.
Beechcraft, famous for the fast, sexy, V-tailed Bonanza, didn’t have a beginner airplane. Beechcraft noticed once a fellow learned to fly in a Cessna 150, he stayed a Cessna man as he stepped up to the 172, the 206, and beyond.
In 1962, Beechcraft had one professional female pilot, Joyce Case, and a new airplane, the Musketeer. Right about then my mother’s résumé crossed someone’s desk who said to himself, wouldn’t we get tons of free publicity if we had two girl pilots and their boss showing off the Musketeer across America? The message became if these little ladies can fly this airplane in their heels, hose, and hairdos, then surely you can do the same, Mr. Rancher or Executive.
Mom received a letter saying if you are the lady your photograph makes you appear to be, you have a job. She was and she did, and at age 81 she looks back upon those years as the time of her life. Read more about it in her book which has lots of very cool Mad Men-esque photos.
Published in Culture, Technology
Great story!
My dad had a 1963 Piper 180, where I learned the basics of flight. In college, I soloed and passed the Private Pilot license in an upgraded Musketeer, with 180 horsepower to replace the original 150 hp.
The Musketeer was more comfortable and had two doors, one on each side, versus the one right side door on the Piper. But it didn’t sell as well, was more expensive, and didn’t travel as fast:
Musketeer
Cherokee
I seem to recall that was one reason for having stewardesses, instead of stewards, as well. (It didn’t hurt that they also tended to weigh less than men would have.)
The original reason was that they were licensed nurses to help alleviate the fears of flying.
I learned to fly in a Cessna 150, mostly. Me! ;)
I’m a fan (and addicted consumer) of Big Finish’s various audio drama series. This month they kicked off a new series set in WWII about the female pilots of the British Air Transport Auxiliary. Given the topic, it may be of interest to some here.
They released the first episode as a freebie for a few days last month, and I downloaded it, but haven’t listened to it yet. (Big backlog in my listening.) Here’s the only review I’ve found so far, and it’s quite positive.
152 and 172 here.
The bigger question is that the pilot of Southwest flight 3472. is an unknown thus why should Shults be a celebrity?
Sully did some awesome flying. Shults and the anonymous flight 3472 pilot did about the most basic emergency flying that can be done.
Shults was impressively calm. But too calm. Her inability to articulate to air traffic control what was going on was conspicuous. She omitted reference to the rapid depressurization, reporting only the engine failure (initially calling it a fire) for several minutes then saying “we have part of the aircraft missing” and then continuing:
ATC: Is your airplane physically on fire?
Shults: No, but part of it’s missing. They said there was a hole and someone went out.
ATC (flabbergasted at just learning of this): I’m sorry you said there is a hole and somebody went out? … Southwest 1380 it doesn’t matter, we’ll work it out there.
I do not know whether she should have communicated the depressurization: was it something the Ground needed to know? Did communicating it override Aviating and Navigating? Would that information have changed anything that Ground did or needed to do?
I would assume so. As evidence, consider she felt the need to say “we have part of the aircraft missing”, etc. Presumably, the particular part is relevant so that ground can determine things like how much runway will be needed, how much emergency equipment would be needed, whether to suggest dumping fuel, etc.
In that situation, aviating (keeping the airplane airborne) and navigating (making it go where you want) were well in hand. Thus they did not need to be overridden. She was communicating.
See above.
At least she didn’t screw it up. As far as we can tell. We’ll assume for now that the engine failure wasn’t caused by the operator. That’s pretty likely, but we won’t know until the NTSB gets done with the mishap investigation.
Yeah, I was pretty struck that that lack of awareness on her part.
I was very impressed by everyone else in the released radio traffic, though.
The ATC was just upset that now someone had to file a TFOA report (Things Falling Off Aircraft, and yes, that’s a real thing).
I think she was just absolutely unaware of the condition of her aircraft and lacked a whole lot of curiosity about it. Maybe the vaulted shut doors had something to do with it. She had to rely on the stewardesses to tell her what was going on, she couldn’t send her co-pilot back to take a look.
Mrs. Tex is also in the 99’s; she spoke at a San Antonio meeting one time and subsequently joined. There were a few women there who had been WASP’s – they had some very cool stories about flying in those days. Captain Shult’s military service was only a few years after my wife’s, and she lives in a community about 15 miles from us.
What’s with the armchair quarterbacking?