Local chapter aims to bring more women into aviation

By Jamie Swinnerton
Tompkins Weekly

 

The Ithaca area has a rich aviation history that has recently been coming back into the picture, but one thing that can often be overlooked in aviation history at-large is the contributions of women. Today, aviation is still a field that can be difficult for women to break into despite the shortages in commercial pilots that the industry is facing. Women in Aviation International wants to change this overlook that has kept the numbers of women in the industry so low. Lucky for Ithaca, a WAI chapter right here in the Finger Lakes is alive and well and always looking for members.

Currently, the local chapter #84 is going through a bit of rebranding. It was created in the Horseheads area around 2010 by current Ithaca and Tompkins Regional Airport director Mike Hall under the name Soaring Capital Eagles. Since Hall moved to the Ithaca area and was introduced to Lisa Sansoucy, the chapter’s current president, the WAI chapter #84 main events and operations have moved primarily to the East Hill Flying Club and will be changing its name to WAI Finger Lakes. But, Sansoucy wants to stress that the chapter isn’t tied to one specific location and welcomes everyone.

“In the process of doing some TSA training at the airport, with airport administration, I met General Mike Hall (director of the Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport),” Sansoucy said of her introduction to the chapter last year. “He invited me to lead the chapter that he had started.”

Sansoucy and Hall have been working together on the chapter since the organizational meeting last September. But she’s been running the bi-monthly meetings.

WAI is an international non-profit with 119 chapters and is “dedicated to the encouragement and advancement of women in all aviation career fields and interests.” Most people when they hear the word aviation likely think of pilots, air traffic controllers, and runway ground crewmembers waving glow-in-the-dark batons to guide the plane. But aviation is a wide-ranging field. The one thing almost all of the areas in this field have in common? Few women.

The local chapter of WAI has a number of goals. First, to communicate clearly that the chapter is open to everyone. Don’t let the name confuse you, it is not a women-only space. Currently, the chapter has 20 members that hail from Ithaca, Syracuse, Lodi, Owego, Elmira, Corning, Horseheads, Addison, Freeville, and Penn Yan.

Outreach, education, awareness, and support are also on the agenda for the local chapter.

“The goals that I have for the chapter that Mike Hall and I have talked about are obviously to bring more women in, raise the profile of aviation to the community, and the different aviation organizations,” Sansoucy said.

As part of the education aspect of these goals, Sansoucy has been working with a local Girl Scout troop that recently earned their Aviation Fun Patches. The troop leader, Naomi Wilensky, got in touch with Sansoucy when her scouts started taking an interest in aviation. So, with Sanscouy’s help, they learned about the four forces of flight (thrust, gravity, drag, and lift) by making paper airplanes and pinwheels, read biographies of famous aviators, learned pilot code talk, and with the help of some of the members of the East Hill Flying Club were taken up in the air to fly. Sansoucy presented the girls with their badges in a ceremony last month.

The scouts’ interests were sparked when their leader told them they would learn how to fold paper airplanes. This grew into a visit to the airport, which grew into an introduction with the East Hill Flying Club, which grew further into reading aviation biographies, learning about hot air balloons, and visiting an aviation museum. In an email to Sansoucy, Wilensky shared that the scouts enjoyed learning about the women of aviation history challenging people’s notions of what they could do.

“They’re the future,” Sansoucy said of the scouts. “We need to develop more women in all areas of aviation.”

 

According to data from the Federal Aviation Administration, the percentage of female pilots has remained pretty flat, around six to seven percent of active certificates, since the 1980s. The numbers aren’t much better when it comes to transport pilots, instructors, navigators, engineers, or mechanics either. That’s why WAI wants to include women in all fields of aviation, not just pilots. More women are needed everywhere.

One of the biggest barriers into aviation is cost. Classes, training, and equipment are all very costly. To help alleviate the financial cost the national WAI organization awards several training opportunities and scholarships to members who apply. But first, they need to get them in the door and spark the interest in air travel.

One subtle but significant aspect of aviation that may be off-putting to some people is the exclusionary language. Airmen, instead of aviators, is the term most often used for people in the aviation field.

“The language of aviation is totally gendered,” Sansoucy said. “I’m officially an airman. My student pilot’s license says I have airman privileges. I’m not a man. They need to change it. I feel that they should change the terms to aviator, which is more inclusive.”

Other fields, even within the aviation umbrella, have changed the exclusionary language. While they were once referred to as air stewardesses since men became a quarter of the employees in the field the term has changed to flight attendants.

While Sansoucy doesn’t believe the aviation industry actively works to keep women out, it could be doing a lot more to invite them in. While other industries have managed to grow the number of women working in them, aviation lags far behind.

“The aviation industry has a structural problem and it’s not going to survive without women’s participation,” Sansoucy said.

The Finger Lakes WAI will be actively participating in several upcoming events, including the centennial flight for the reconstructed Tommy plane in September. Anyone interested in learning more about the local chapter of WAI can contact Lisa Sansoucy at ljs4@cornell.edu.