Despite it being over a century since the first woman gained a pilot s licence, piloting remains a male-dominated profession. Worldwide, only 3% of airline pilots are women and, of these, only 450 hold the rank of Captain, a number who could easily be seated within a single A380. UK airlines are recognising that the low number and proportion of female pilots is an issue and some carriers, including easyJet, have introduced initiatives to promote gender diversity on the flightdeck. However, as there are few female pilots qualifying and applying for airline jobs, there is a compelling need to both examine why relatively few women consider a career as a pilot and then understand the challenges those who do make a non-traditional career choice and enter the profession face during their initial (ab initio) training in reconciling their developing professional identity as a pilot with their gender identity as a woman. The aim of this thesis is to explore the effects of women ab initio pilots minority status on their gender and professional identities. To address this aim, the thesis utilises the Theory of Tokenism, together with concepts of Gender Performativity and Professional Identity, to explore the experiences of ab-initio pilots at two UK-based Flight Training Schools. New empirical evidence, derived from in-depth interviews and surveys, found that female cadets perceive elements of their professional identities differently from men, and women cadets adopt a range of strategies to negotiate conflicts between their developing professional and gender identities. The research examines the experiences of these cadets to make both theoretical and empirical contributions to existing studies of gender-dominated professions as well as offering practical recommendations to airlines and flight training schools who are seeking to encourage more women to qualify as commercial airline pilots.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Note:

Note:

Note:

Equivalency analysis is a statistical procedure that can enhance the findings of an analysis of variance in the case when non-significant differences are identified. The demonstration of functional equivalence or the absence of practical differences is useful to designers introducing new technologies to the flight deck. Proving functional equivalence is an effective means to justify the implementation of new technologies that must be "the same or better" than previous technology. This study examines the functional equivalency of three operational modes of a new active control sidestick during normal operations while performing manual piloting tasks. Data from a between-subjects, repeated-measures simulator test was analyzed using analysis of variance and equivalency analysis. Ten pilots participated in the simulator test which was conducted in a fixed-base, business jet simulator. Pilots performed maneuvers such as climbing and descending turns and ILS approaches using three sidestick modes: active, unlinked, and passive. RMS error for airspeed, flight path angle, and bank angle were measured in addition to touchdown points on the runway relative to centerline and runway threshold. Results indicate that the three operational modes are functionally equivalent when performing climbing and descending turns. Active and unlinked modes were found to be functionally equivalent when flying an ILS approach, but the passive mode, by a small margin, was not found to be functionally equivalent.