Star Simpson

This came up after I met several women who started training in their 20s and quit to support families, then returned in their 50s/60s

An unaccountable number of these are married to husbands who maintained their ratings or added new ones in that same timeframe.

for me it's a question of being able to afford it. i want to do helicopter first. that's money that could be down payment...

...for a house or money that i can use to get my business off the ground.

yep. So you have these compounding factors — having a career in the first place that provides the income is one of the filters.

part of my interest is having found the soaring community to be so, so welcoming

so "the usual reasons" are not the same, for why women don't do get into it. It looks to me more like women are cut off at the source

yeah and i guess the other way i could have afforded it was by joining the military but i was and am not into that.

and some military trained helicopter pilots i spoke with all let their certs lapse because civil helicopters weren't as...

...appealing to fly because of simpler instrumentation, smaller craft, etc.