Plane&Pilot magazine covers exciting new developments in an industry where there hasn’t been significant innovation since the 1970s (glass cockpits) or 1990s (GPS). Thus, like the rest of America, the magazine has been reduced to covering gender issues. The December 2017 issue carries a “Plane Facts” column titled “Women in Aviation”.
The column reminds readers of the achievements of Jacqueline Cochran, back in the 1930s-1950s when it didn’t occur to people that women were the new children. Then there is a discussion of female pilot certificate holders, with an “estimated active pilot certificates held by women” going from 2.85 percent of all pilots in 1960 to 6.39 percent in 1980 and then more or less staying constant (6.71 percent in 2016).
[Note that these numbers don’t necessarily track the number of women working as pilots. Many pilot certificate holders don’t fly as part of their job. On the one hand, you might expect a higher percentage of female commercial pilots because pilots who identify as women are generally able to get jobs at the FAA minimum number of hours of experience for the position (“Affirmative Action” or “positive discrimination”). On the other hand, women have less incentive to continue working as pilots (and therefore living out of discount hotel rooms) because a woman who has sex with an airline Captain can obtain, depending on the state, a higher spending power than from working as a First Officer (see the Massachusetts chapter for one example of a woman who had three children with three different pilots; also “Child Support Litigation without a Marriage”).]
Buried among the statistics is the percentage of women who hold FAA certificates entitling them to maintain certified aircraft: 2.28 percent.
Thus the gender ratio is roughly 13:1 among pilots and 50:1 among mechanics. Yet we are bombarded with stories about women pilots breaking the purported gender barrier while nobody seems to care how many female mechanics there are.
Maybe the answer is money? BLS says airline and commercial pilots earn a median $105,720 per year (not CFIs at flight schools, unfortunately!). The BLS number for mechanics is $60,170. On the other hand, if we adjust for working hours the mechanics may actually earn more. The mechanic never has to sleep in a Hilton Garden Inn. The mechanic has a lower risk of death or injury. (Though many light aircraft mechanics bravely go out with customers on test flights following maintenance!) The mechanic can generally start earning money sooner than the pilot and invests less in training (maybe essentially nothing, just working for 30 months as an apprentice and then taking a test). The mechanic’s job is far less vulnerable to economic boom and bust cycles (a plane needs an annual inspection if it is to fly even one hour during a year!).
Readers: Why the public passion for women in the cockpit, but no corresponding passion for women in the hangar?
As usual, the answer is probably that some women who had trouble qualifying complained more loudly in one case than in the other.
Most people have a very superficial understanding of the industry and employment opportunities within it.
This is because the media is obsessed with “elevating” women. It doesn’t matter if a woman high in the sky is worse off than a woman on the ground. Childish thinking implies that higher is better.
Nobody cares the guys picking up my trash are just guys. Maybe it is because some jobs are seen as aspirational (rightly or wrongly), and people only care about those.
Mechanics have a dirty job! Sometimes they get oil on themselves and under their fingernails.
As Bill Burr says “All women want is the good sh*t from guys”:
Airline mechanics are predominantly unionized, and job assignments are by seniority. They start out for years on night or rotating shifts in all weather, because planes are not usually accessible for maintenance during the day. Most repairs can be deferred until night because the systems are redundant and a single failure does not stop the plane. A minimum crew of mechanics is available in daytime to troubleshoot and (usually) tag the problems for repair at night. Of course a few problems like failed tires must be repaired immediately. It is not a “dirty” job but it does require strength, dexterity, and climbing agility in addition to cognitive and logical skill. Women with the skills can probably find a better physical work environment in a modern factory or academic workshop. There is not much time for on-job amour with the schedule pressure on junior mechanics, but it is a 40 hour week with adequate time off for personal affairs.
The comments so far may or may not explain to one extent or another why there aren’t more women aircraft mechanics. I don’t think they explain (much of) why there isn’t more “public passion” for women in the hanger.
I know nothing about the aircraft industry, but I am a keen cyclist and own a few titanium bikes.
To find skilled ti workers, you go to a country that has a strong aerospace or military industry. The Italian cycle firm Colnago used to have bikes built in a Russian ex-munition factory that specialised in ti military parts. A visitor to the factory noticed that most of the welders were women.
Russian women tend to drink far less alcohol than their male peers. This is important in a country that excludes beer from official alcohol consumption statistics because it is considered a soft drink – a good reason to employ women!
As Neal notes, I don’t think that the ” Why the public passion for women in the cockpit, but no corresponding passion for women in the hangar?” question has gotten a convincing answer.
Being an aviation mechanic is a good job and requires a lot more brainpower than many pilot jobs (“go where dispatch tells you to go” is not as hard as “figure out whether Repair X is legal and then write up appropriate documentation for Repair X”). It is also, I think, a better job than the average U.S. job. So why doesn’t anyone care about the gender IDs of aircraft mechanics?
There is no history of discrimination against women in the field. They probably self-select out because of the strength issues, like the military training requirements. Quite a few women are aerospace/aviation engineers, usually a desk job. The female engineers I knew were tough mentally and brooked no fools among their peers. Office romances were as common as in other jobs, including LBG (not much T in evidence those days). LBG was OK early in the airline industry because thousands of Flight Attendants were a big demographic who asserted themselves. Airlines have huge contingents in LBGT Pride parades.
So maybe your answer, for airlines anyway, is people need not be concerned, women are here, queer, and in our face.
A young woman of my acquaintance is doing precisely this. In her quest for a career in aviation (she wants to be a bush pilot) and to supplement her meagre income as an instructor, she has taken the coursework and is apprenticing as a mechanic. Her income is higher, even in the apprentice phase.
She can now afford to pay for the time to build her instrument and float ratings.
Women don’t want to be mechanics, etc., so there is no “public passion” for it. Women want to be doctors and lawyers and such.