WOMAN'S AIR-SENSE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20364, 19 September 1929, Page 17

WOMAN'S AIR-SENSE.

WHY IT IS GOOD

Occasionally ofte hears tlie cry, "Women arc inferior to men as fliers," writes n woman aviator in a Sydney newspaper. Expert men pilots insist that wo have not the same "executive ability," the same "air worthiness."

Even so great an authority as Captain C. D. Barnard, one of (he finest pilots in England, who taught the Duchess of Bed ford to handle her own machine, has said that "the serious side of aviation, the work of aviation and its hazards will fall to the lot of men to accomplish." There is ignominy for you! We women arc constantly being told that in many ways wo are gaining an equality with our menfolk, not only in athletic prowess, but also in methods of business. In some countries, America for instance, the training of women athletes has developed into a fine art. And the other day I read an article by a woman stockbroker!

Naturally wo older women recognise that numbers of our daughters would take up flying for themselves if their time permitted it; yet, although tho conditions for learning to fly round Sydney are the finest in the world, opportunities, which would in other countries send practically every woman into the air, are in Australia being allowed to slip through their fingers. Possibly the whole root of tho trouble and the reason why girls as a wholo do not take inoro kindly to tho air to-day lie in the fact that by far tho larger section of the population has not acquired "air-sense."

Trains had to be run for years successfully before tho women of the community would ride in them and the cause of aviation is suffering in the same way at the hands of a later generation.

Yet, in flying, unlike some of the more strenuous forms of exercise, woman comes nearer to equality with man than in any other sport. The greatest asset of a good pilot is the ability to think quickly and more than half the accidents to aeroplanes are due to delays in thought, followed by delays in action. Women, generally speaking, can think quicker than men. * Their moral superiority in the air, therefore, seems obvious. Of course, I am not speaking of that sterner and more exacting intellectual work that keeps industrial civilisation going without a crash. Providing ho is suflicientlv endowed with mental energy any man can perform that lengthy task better than a woman.

But only a quick eye and swift calculation enable an air-pilot to anticipate sudden calamity. It is then that tho successful woman aviator requires nerves of steel.