Female Pilots vs. Male Pilots

Originally posted by kilcoo316
A combat pilot needs to be cool and level-headed at all times, bear in mind your strengths, your opponent's weaknesses, and construct the fight to augement your strengths - not charge in trying to kill everything in 10 seconds.

I agree with that, I just don't agree with your definition and generalization of aggression in combat.

If you want aggressive just compare the man to the woman during that special time of month and you'll have more aggression than you can handle Please dont take this post the wrong way its just a joke.

It is far more dependent on training then gender.

However, I wouldn't like female pilots in older jets for one simple reason: In a out of trim scenario, you will need allot of strength to push the nose down to stay level. Of course that only happens in older airliners like the 727....

Also, in a Red Bull Airrace, an Edge 540 pulled almost 15g's. It may not be sustained, but with military training and a G suit, I would think 6 - 10 G's would be fairly easy.

[edit on 12-11-2006 by PisTonZOR]

Actually, you need controlled agression. It is about picking the right time to ram home the advantage, and when you do, you do it until the other guy is dead. That is the agressiveness that WestPoint is talking about. Just because you are agressive doesn't mean you'll screw things up. Most of the wash-outs I've seen on initial fighter or conversion course is because the student is too timid when the opportunity to press home an advantage arises. It might be the one chance you get, you need to know when to take it.

As for women versus men, the differences are superficial. Yes, women have a slightly higher g tolerance due to heart location and (according to my aviation medicine notes) a slightly higher average blood pressure, but at 7.5 g this really doesn't give them that much extra advantage. Of course, the irony here is that your fat, unfit smoker has a higher g tolerance as well, so are we going to discriminate pilots based on this? I don't think so. And as mentioned earlier with the prevalence of BVR combat, and the spreading of HMS and HOBS missiles, there won't be as many turning fights anyhow.

The main issue most women have to deal with is attitude. Breaking into the "boys" club is historically difficult to do. From my point of view, if a woman can do the same job, to the same standard, as a man, then there should be no issue with them strapping into a jet. Conversely, a man who isn't up to the job is dangerous to himself and his comrades, and shouldn't be graduated above a suitably qualified woman. In a nutshell, I see absolutely no reason to discriminate due to gender, or any other similar reason. If you gave the majority of level headed pilots the option between being able to hang nudie pictures on their lockers, or having a qualified, competent wingman (ummm, winglady? Hmmmm....), most I think would pick the latter.

I prefer established fact to speculation:

www.bukisa.com...

edition.cnn.com...

parenting.blogs.nytimes.com...

www.chinadaily.com.cn...

userpages.aug.com...

en.wikipedia.org...

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Women are as good as men in just about anything you can think of, generally, and individually superior in many cases.

I would have thought Amelia Earhart would have laid this question to rest ages ago.

I would have thought Amelia Earhart would have laid this question to rest ages ago.

Excluding the completely off-topic post preceding yours, the question was laid to rest back in 2006. Male or Female, if they are individually best the Air Force can get, then they should be hired.

[edit on 8/11/2009 by C0bzz]

Do not let women fly! I ride a motorcycle and have had cars pull out in front of me me may times almost causing me to crash and possible die. Every single time it was a woman that seemed to be lost in her dream world. I bet mostly listening to music, womens brains was not designed to multitask.

Originally posted by apacheman

I would have thought Amelia Earhart would have laid this question to rest ages ago.

Whilst I wholeheartedly agree with you, I find the above quote interesting.....

Was it intended to reinforce your argument or otherwise.... remember she died attempting to cross the Pacific, many other women set records, flew flights, etc - and LIVED!

The Winged Wombat

Night Witches

Worth a read.

There are outstandingly talented pilots from both sexes. Thats about all you can say really.