Women of Aviation Worldwide is a week celebrated around the world that focusses on the contributions of women pilots. Some of Tallahassee’s female aviators marked the event at the local airport on Saturday.
The celebratory week was first started as a way to coincide with the anniversary of the first woman to get a pilot’s license. This year the event also coincides with the 50th anniversary of the first woman in space. Faith Drewry said the event is meant to show the lack of progress in aviation as compared to other careers that now include women.
“Yesterday was the 103rd anniversary of the first woman to earn a pilot’s license and in those hundred years woman have gone from zero percent to 25 percent in careers such as doctors and lawyers, but in aviation woman still only represent six percent of the pilot population,” Drewry said.
Drewry and her business partner Lacey Smith are both woman pilots in Tallahassee and run an aviation school called the Florida Aviation Center. Saturday’s airport event also offered rides for first-time flyers and an aviation career fair.