The inside story of the hypermasculine world of American private
aviation.
In 1960, 97 percent of private pilots were men. More than half a century
later, this figure has barely changed. In Weekend Pilots, Alan Meyer
provides an engaging account of the postWorld War II aviation community.
Drawing on public records, trade association journals, newspaper
accounts, and private papers and interviews, Meyer takes readers inside
a white, male circle of the initiated that required exceptionally high
skill levels, that celebrated facing and overcoming risk, and that
encouraged fierce personal independence.
The Second World War proved an important turning point in popularizing
private aviation. Military flight schools and postwar GI-Bill flight
training swelled the ranks of private pilots with hundreds of thousands
of young, mostly middle-class men. Formal flight instruction screened
and acculturated aspiring fliers to meet a masculine norm that traced
its roots to prewar barnstorming and wartime combat training. After the
war, the aviation community's response to aircraft designs played a
significant part in the technological development of personal planes.
Meyer also considers the community of pilots outside the cockpit--from
the time-honored tradition of "hangar flying" at local airports to air
shows to national conventions of private fliers--to argue that almost
every aspect of private aviation reinforced the message that flying was
by, for, and about men. The first scholarly book to examine in detail
the role of masculinity in aviation, Weekend Pilots adds new
dimensions to our understanding of embedded gender and its long-term
effects.
