By Mike Davenport, EAA 89102, Langley, British Columbia
Something that isn’t seen often on our airfield is the so-called weaker sex, and that is probably because there’s really no such thing. I have yet to meet one of those, having raised four daughters. The women that I have met have some of the same interests and enthusiasm as some of the famous women of times past.
Their names are not as familiar as the likes of Amelia Earhart, Beryl Markham, or Catherine Stinson, to name just a few from the distant past. You most likely have read about them already. Ours are not record holders or famous like the above, but they have that love for aviation that drove those few to succeed.
I’m thinking of those locals who perhaps hold a PPL, are helicopter pilots, aircraft mechanics, air traffic controllers, flight instructors, commercial pilots, aircraft and hangar owners, and still others in airport management; all who go about their daily tasks with little fanfare.
I won’t name these people as my aim is not to embarrass anyone, and besides that, those who frequent my home airport will know who they are. How about your airport? I’m willing to bet that there are a few there too.
By the way, the foregoing got me thinking about other things as well (there are those who say that I have the attention span of a gerbil). We’ve had diversity here long before it became mandatory: Heck, we’ve even had a unisex porta-potty years before it became popular, and no one’s hair caught fire. However, one of life’s mysteries is why the people who make policy and built a duck pond off the end of an active runway also felt that we needed a disabled accessible porta-potty.