Female Pilot Journalist: I’m Offended When Hero Southwest Pilot Called “Female Pilot”

RUSH: There’s an op-ed in the Washington Post today. It’s by Beverly Weintraub. And the headline: “‘Sully’ Was Just a Hero. Why Label the Southwest Captain a ‘Female Pilot’?” Beverly Weintraub — by the way, this is cool. She’s a Pulitzer Prize winner, member of the New York Daily News editorial board. She’s a member of the Ninety-Nines. Do you know what that is? You probably don’t. It’s an international organization of women pilots.

And she’s on the board of directors of the Air Race Classic. My mom was a Ninety-Nine. (interruption) Yeah, my mom was a pilot. We had an old Cessna 182 Skylane for a few years when I was growing up, and my mom learned to fly the thing — and she was good. And, you know, my dad — in addition to being a lawyer — was heavily involved in aviation. He loved it. And the Ninety-Nines do this every year. I don’t know if they still do. But they did a national race of women pilots racing Left Coast to Right Coast.

And they would stop — all of them stop — at various airports across the country, and Cape Girardeau with a little… (chuckles) Well, I think we had the new runway. Anyway, we had a 3,000-foot runway and here they come. These are single-engine, maybe twin-engine, but they’re not jets. And they’re women pilots. Maybe their husbands are with them, maybe a female copilot or whatever, and they’d fly in. Every year we’d go out there and meet ’em and various members of the town would meet ’em.

We’d take ’em all to dinner the night they spent overnight and then take ’em back to the airport the next day and wave at ’em as they took off on the next leg of the race. The Ninety-Nines! I haven’t heard of the Ninety-Nines since… It’s been 25 years since anybody talked about the Ninety-Nines. Beverly Weintraub is a Ninety-Nine. So I just had to point that out. Anyway, she’s upset that the… By the way, we didn’t refer here to the pilot of the Southwest jet as a woman.

I think I referred to her yesterday as “a bad ass pilot.” But Beverly Weintraub is upset… Captain Sully, the guy that landed the U.S. Airways jet right there in the Hudson River? Nobody called him “male pilot.” They just called him a “pilot.” Why do we call this babe “female pilot”? Why do we have on to put “female” in front of it? Well, you can take a stab at answering that yourself. What do you think the reason is, Mr. Snerdley? Do you think sexism is the reason why “female” — and, by the way, it’s the Drive-By Media that did it.

It’s not… She not lashing out at any particular group. It was throughout the media that the “woman pilot” was referred to just like that: A “woman” pilot or “female” pilot. I think it has to do with the numbers. There aren’t nearly as many female airline pilots today as there are male, and the number of female pilots who successfully navigate problems in the air and safely land a plane that’s under distress, it’s not very many. So it’s unique.

But I don’t think anybody means anything by it, do you? I don’t think anybody was… Nobody was cutting her down. Nobody was certainly not affording her respect. I think the fact that she was identified as “a female pilot” actually was intended as a… I don’t want to say “compliment,” but I think it’s pretty close to that. It certainly wasn’t to impugn, and I don’t think it was to belittle. But it is a sign of the sensitivity that is out there.

I hate to be the one to break it to you but all Americans don’t have yankee accents and his mom and brother spoke/speak southern accent respectively

Hence my question

I hate to be the one to break it to you but all Americans don’t have yankee accents

That is true.

So why doesn't Rush speak Southern?

Could it be that Rush, a radio professional, speaks standard broadcast English, his goal being to reach the most Americans possible?

I’ve flown a career in the A-10 and F-15E.

“Energy is life” is a truism.

Thing is, all fighter pilots practice BFM, ACM, DCAM, etc. . .set-ups from a neutral engagement (head-to-head pass) to being out front from the git’go to behind the adversary. We do this because no matter what we plan, we must be prepared to get into that phone booth because sometimes you have no choice.

To make the mistake that we will not engage in a knife-fight because of generational advancements and other enhancements is to make a fundamental flaw in reasoning. Recall we designed the F-4 without a gun because we had missiles, but we soon discovered we need a gun. We will always need a gun. Heck even the F-22 practices dog-fighting.

Point is, as we advance we must also not ignore what made us successful in the past. All combat skills must be hones, either in the air or on the ground.

Cheers

So, the fact remains, upper body strength is important

I don’t disagree with your point about upper body strength. It is a valid distinction. But only to a point. Those lucky few that qualify and earn their wings are a select group. At that level it is an equal playing field regardless of man or women. I heard the arguments when they first came up and physical attributes did not disqualify female pilots. You already know most fighter pilots undergo required centrifuge training, for the Navy pilots spin training (used to be done in the old Buckeye). Most pump iron to develop a higher G tolerance. We always had hotshots who complained in the simulator when the G force limits were turned on to simulate grey out and G-LOK black out with the visuals going dark that they could handle a 6 G pull for more than 10 seconds or a 12 G pull for more than 4 seconds which was bunk. Yes, physical strength is very important, but I would not want to dogfight against Patty Wagstaff or Bob Hoover.

G tolerance is something that is up and down, depending on the guy behind the stick.

6-gs is nothing much, truly, when I was a T-37 IP another IP and I went up to 20,000 feet and then began a 6-g turn (descending) down to 5,000 feet. I assure you, it was not that hard. We just wanted to play.

It is rate of G onset that truly is the challenge.

Been at 11.5 Gs for about 10 secs while over Iraq — no big deal when your adrenaline kicks in.

I understand your point and really don’t disagree much, but having been there, I know upper body strength is important.

As a fighter pilot you learn to love Gs, miss them really. Heck, if ou didn’t hit at least 4 Gs in the overhead you were considered weak.

I could go on about the double standard certain females were granted when in training, like crying during debriefs (you know how brutal those can be). But that is for a different day and thread.

Cheers my FReind

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