[url=http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/05 ... tires.html]http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/05 ... tires.html[/url]
Hard to believe its only been 37 years since this occurred.
Not to take anything away from Captain Cameron but do they mean Airline pilot? There was not one female pilot bombing around somewhere else before her?
Canada's first female commercial pilot retires
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HiFlyChick
- Posts: 69
- Joined: Sun May 24, 2015 9:54 pm
Yeah - to the general public (including the media), "commercial pilot" means airline. I've been asked on a number of occasionsif I ever plan on "flying commercially" (I fly charter now).
Two things in this article really surprised me - that it was only 37 years ago, and that there are still only 3-4% airline pilots that are women. When I was instructing in the early 90s I represented 25% of all women instructors in the region. Granted, Atlantic is a small region, but I still thought it was bizarre. Over the years I remember noticing an increase in the number of women that started training, but that the trickle through to the higher levels didn't seem to be occurring.
It's a really tough decision if you are a young woman who wants children - so tough that it may even come down to choosing flying or children (and then you have the whole resentment of one because it held you back in the other area). I was lucky in that I never intended on having kids anyway, so I could focus on the flying, but if you want to do both, it must be super tough to decide when to have kids. Then there's the whole losing your medical (I had a friend who had a tough time getting her medical back due to complications in the pregnancy), and the issues with multiple overnights out of town and child-care, etc.
Two things in this article really surprised me - that it was only 37 years ago, and that there are still only 3-4% airline pilots that are women. When I was instructing in the early 90s I represented 25% of all women instructors in the region. Granted, Atlantic is a small region, but I still thought it was bizarre. Over the years I remember noticing an increase in the number of women that started training, but that the trickle through to the higher levels didn't seem to be occurring.
It's a really tough decision if you are a young woman who wants children - so tough that it may even come down to choosing flying or children (and then you have the whole resentment of one because it held you back in the other area). I was lucky in that I never intended on having kids anyway, so I could focus on the flying, but if you want to do both, it must be super tough to decide when to have kids. Then there's the whole losing your medical (I had a friend who had a tough time getting her medical back due to complications in the pregnancy), and the issues with multiple overnights out of town and child-care, etc.
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Chuck Ellsworth
When I was learning to fly the two best instructors I had were women one of them, Marion Orr received the Order of Canada.
[quote]A part of our heritage...
LEARNING RESOURCES
Owing to the male-biased Service regulations of the time, the wishes of Canadian women pilots to fly with the RCAF during World War II were generally shot down. Nevertheless, as least one Canadian woman managed to fly military aircraft. Marion Orr paid for her own flying lessons in 1941, then went off to England where she got a position with the Air Transport Auxiliary ferry service, moving combat planes between airfields. By October 1944 she had accumulated 700 flying hours on 67 different types of planes.
"It was a continual challenge to fly so many different types," she recalled. "But an airplane is an airplane; maybe different speeds, different knobs, heavier, but that didn't bother me at all." After the war, Marion Orr returned to Canada and opened her own flying school. Some years later she became Canada's first woman helicopter pilot, gave helicopter lessons, and occasionally flew patrols for the Ontario Provincial Police. She received the Order of Canada in 1986, and was still flying at age 76. Marion Orr's long and colourful career in aviation ended in April, 1995, when she was killed in an automobile accident.
The principal role of the RCAF Women's Division was to free males for combat duties. Marion Orr was one of a small number of women who flew for the Air Transport Auxiliary, a separate agency that moved aircraft from base to base in England.
[/quote]
It was due to Marion's example I eventually learned to fly helicopters, and of course she was correct...they are way more satisfying to fly than airplanes. :)
[quote]A part of our heritage...
LEARNING RESOURCES
Owing to the male-biased Service regulations of the time, the wishes of Canadian women pilots to fly with the RCAF during World War II were generally shot down. Nevertheless, as least one Canadian woman managed to fly military aircraft. Marion Orr paid for her own flying lessons in 1941, then went off to England where she got a position with the Air Transport Auxiliary ferry service, moving combat planes between airfields. By October 1944 she had accumulated 700 flying hours on 67 different types of planes.
"It was a continual challenge to fly so many different types," she recalled. "But an airplane is an airplane; maybe different speeds, different knobs, heavier, but that didn't bother me at all." After the war, Marion Orr returned to Canada and opened her own flying school. Some years later she became Canada's first woman helicopter pilot, gave helicopter lessons, and occasionally flew patrols for the Ontario Provincial Police. She received the Order of Canada in 1986, and was still flying at age 76. Marion Orr's long and colourful career in aviation ended in April, 1995, when she was killed in an automobile accident.
The principal role of the RCAF Women's Division was to free males for combat duties. Marion Orr was one of a small number of women who flew for the Air Transport Auxiliary, a separate agency that moved aircraft from base to base in England.
[/quote]
It was due to Marion's example I eventually learned to fly helicopters, and of course she was correct...they are way more satisfying to fly than airplanes. :)
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Tailwind W10
- Posts: 110
- Joined: Fri May 22, 2015 5:39 pm
Curious. Miss Cameron first rode in a plane in 1973, the same year that Rosella Bjornson took a job at Transaair. I suspect The Star hasn't done it's homework, as only last year Canada Post honored her with a stamp to mark being the first female airline pilot.
http://canadianaviator.com/stamp-honour ... ine-pilot/
Rosella is married to a friend of mine, Bill Pratt. Bill started with PWA back in the DC-6 days. Through their journeys they often flew 737s together, her as Captain, he as FI. When they checked into the same hotel rooms in uniform they often had to explain they actually were married. ;D
Gerry
http://canadianaviator.com/stamp-honour ... ine-pilot/
Rosella is married to a friend of mine, Bill Pratt. Bill started with PWA back in the DC-6 days. Through their journeys they often flew 737s together, her as Captain, he as FI. When they checked into the same hotel rooms in uniform they often had to explain they actually were married. ;D
Gerry
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