Female Aviators

This appeared last friday in the Israeli daily Haaretz. I, for one, can’t imagine why such a thing could take place, but then I’m an air force nut. I would appreciate any comments on the subject, mainly from the female members. Has anything similiar happened in other air forces?

Female interest in pilots courses is losing altitude
By Amnon Barzilai

The number of women interested in participating in the Israel Air Force’s pilots course is steadily dropping, according to figures collated at the air force flying school in Hatzerim.

Ever since the gates of the school were opened to female candidates, some 12 courses ago, 107 budding female aviators have participated in the training. Of these, just one completed the course to become a fighter pilot. Three other women completed the navigation part of the course, and there is one women at an advanced stage of the current fighter pilot course.

The IAF decided at the start of this year to increase the number of women candidates in its pilots courses. Since January this year, the IDF’s enlistment administration has contacted all the female inductees who met the preliminary criteria (including psychometric results and personal ability tests) to try out for flying school. This policy is intended to increase the number of female inductees who are candidates for the pilots courses.

In practice, however, the trend is very different, with the number of women interested in applying for the course dropping.

The commander of the air force’s flying school, Colonel Adi Shaham, said this week that he believed the reason for the decline was a sharp drop in motivation among female inductees. The top brass in the IAF, however, believe that the database of information gathered since women began to participate in the pilots courses in not comprehensive enough to facilitate a thorough study of the reasons for this lack of motivation. This, they say, is because the number of women applying for the pilots course is very low, and any minor change in the trends would have a disproportionate influence on the overall figures.

Following a preliminary look at the figures, the IAF has put forward several possible explanations. First, they say, the trend that was started in the 1990s, whereby courses that had previously been the sole domain of male soldiers were opened to women, has run its natural course. At first, this trend created a wave of interest and enthusiasm, but the feeling now is that this initial appeal has worn off

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U.N. Representative: So, Mr. Evil –
Dr. Evil: It’s Dr. Evil, I didn’t spend six years in Evil Medical School to be called “mister,” thank you very much.