Original subtitles

[tranquil music playing]

[Afton] Daisy Mae!

[clucking]

This one, come on. Lulu!

What? Stevie. That one's Stevie.

This one's Eda. That one's Billy.

Billy.

Come on, guys. Snack!

I don't think they can see it. It's green like the grass.

Come on, guys. Snack!

Hey, Bessie.

Bessie is named after Bessie Coleman,

which is like the first female African-American aviator.

Amelia is in here. Hey, hey.

Amelia is a talker.

Amelia. Hey, ugh.

Her name is Amelia named after Amelia Earhart

since I like aviation and they're girls.

Oh, really? Pfft. She's talking, heh.

Well, this plane has Patty Wagstaff in it,

which I made myself.

It originally had a, uh, a boy driver or like pilot

so I decided I'm like no,

I want it to change it to Miss Patty

so I made my own little Patty Lego

to be flying in it with my Star Wars battle so...

Well, Miss Patty is a female pilot

which she does stunt planes

and I love to watch her at like air shows

and I love her flying up and out.

I just think a stunt pilot is really cool.

Girls make better pilots than boys because we're way smarter.

No offense.

[upbeat music playing]

♪ You won't ever see us Back away ♪

♪ Ti! we make the world see That we ain't come to play ♪

♪ This is so lil girls dream Bigger than they supposed to ♪

♪ And we get a fair share of pie On the plate ♪

♪ I am her, I am her ♪

♪ I am her ♪

♪ Pardon this interruption Of your daily status quo ♪

♪ We're here to disrupt ♪

♪ The arrangement Of your daddy's show ♪

♪ This double extraordinary Enigmatic flow is ♪

♪ Brought to you by Audre And Bell and Maya Angelou ♪

♪ Hand 'em over We need the titles, receipts ♪

♪ The empire replete With the power to speak ♪

♪ And, no This is not a request ♪

♪ Hundreds of years of forced Silence got a lot on my chest ♪

♪ And we don't need Your approval ♪

♪ On our style of address Or style of the dress ♪

♪ I'll rock a head wrap And bulletproof vest ♪

♪ And start my lyrical sermon With this ♪

♪ Mother you guessed it ♪

♪ Just so we're clear on who Governs reproductive requests ♪

♪ It's not up to anyone's Opinion on how I protect it ♪

♪ I'm part of collectives from Mali to Mecca getting bigger ♪

♪ And our premiere be major No longer hidden figures ♪

♪ We out to level the playing Field for them young queens ♪

♪ Coming for that wage gap til We recoup them Hidden figures ♪

I In '97, million women marched And I was with it ♪

♪ In 2017, the same The establishment livid ♪

♪ If this a man's world we came Here to grab the equivalents ♪

♪ And watch The future reimagined ♪

♪ By the hand of the feminine ♪

♪ You won't ever see us Back away ♪

♪ Ti! we make the world see that We ain't come to play ♪

♪ This is so lil girls dream Bigger than they supposed to ♪

♪ And we get a fair share of pie On the plate ♪

♪ I am her, I am her ♪

♪ You won't ever see us Back away ♪

♪ Ti! we make the world see That we ain't come to play ♪

♪ This is so lil girls dream Bigger than they supposed to ♪

♪ And we get a fair share Of pie on the plate ♪

♪ I am her, I am her ♪

♪ I am her ♪

[man 1] The airplane, symbol of our mastery of the skies,

Is spanning oceans and continents in ever dwindling hours,

bringing new hope to the people of the world,

Is spanning oceans and continents in ever dwindling hours,

new horizons to industry and new careers to you.

For air transportation has proved itself a vital factor

in the social and economic life of modern civilization.

It is a rapidly expanding industry

Embracing many trades and professions.

An industry employing thousands of persons.

and earn your living in a youthful and romantic industry,

And if you want to learn

Air transportation presents a challenge

And an opportunity for your life work.

[upbeat music playing]

Well, I really wanted to be a pilot when I was a kid.

I wanted to be an airline pilot like my dad.

And, uh, but my parents said, you know, "Girls don't become pilots.

You can't really do that."

You know, I dreamed about becoming an astronaut,

And I always knew that I could do any of that stuff

and so on, but the oppor...

but there weren't opportunities for girls.

that there weren't any limitations to what I could do

An accountant the next day, an astronaut the next day.

I mean, I just changed on the weekly.

When I was young,

I was that kid, uh, that wanted to be a ballerina one day,

But it just seemed like something that was really cool.

It didn't even then seemed like something that I should consider,

as, you know, as reality.

I'm originally from Afghanistan.

My family and I came to the United States during the Afghan-Soviet war.

Uh, so my family came to the U.S. as refugees.

It was very difficult for me to connect with school.

I grew up in Richmond, California,

where it's a very underprivileged school district.

Substitute teachers were the norm.

English was not my first language.

It was actually my third.

Uh, so I kind of found myself in this environment

where, uh, school wasn't motivating.

I struggled a lot in school.

I wasn't good in math or science, um...

And I really didn't read my first chapter book until I was 13.

I knew I wanted to be an astronaut at the age of nine

when I was looking up at the stars,

and I thought, "Wow, I wonder what those things are."

And ever since then, I wanted to go into space.

In school, I used to get bullied a lot for me wanting to go to space

and wanting to be an astronaut.

Girls are taught to be girly

and stuff that they should look like and images they...

They can't live up to and I think they just stop believing in themselves

and stop what they want to do.

My parents had no idea I wanted to be a pilot.

I was just a kid that wanted to play outside.

I wanted to go on trips

and go to, you know, Orlando to go to all the theme parks and stuff.

Um, being an aviator never really crossed my mind.

Growing up, I... I was fed a steady diet of science fiction and fantasy.

Uh, so to me, space exploration never seemed like an unrealistic goal.

It was definitely something that was attainable

because my heroines and heroes in books were doing it every day.

How could I not?

The first person to actually tell me that my dream was highly unlikely

and very improbable was my mom.

She sat me down one day, and she was like,

"Abby, do you have any idea how difficult this is?"

She told me then and there, "If this is something that you really want to do,

you have to make a plan, and you have to be ready to work for it."

And so I went away from that discussion, and I did some research.

And I typed out a couple of different documents of ways

that I could go about becoming an astronaut.

When someone tells you that your dream is impossible,

you have to prove to them that it's not.

I can be not only the first woman on Mars, but the first person on Mars.

From that moment on, my mom has been my biggest supporter.

Actually had no interest in aviation.

My dream was to go be a psychologist and be a grief counselor.

So I had never flown.

I had planes would fly over, I didn't look twice.

It wasn't something that really piqued my interest.

I had a teacher who encouraged me to look into a school here in Lake Glenn

called Central Florida Aerospace Academy.

And I started learning about ground schooling

and how planes fly, and learning how to read weather reports

and learning how to talk to air traffic control and things like that.

And I was addicted.

I was at Career Day Army ROTC.

I did not want to go into the aviation tent at all whatsoever.

I actually made the comment,

"Like people don't fly," which is so not true, right?

Tuskegee Airmen Bessie Coleman, Willa Brown,

and when we walked into the tent,

I saw a black woman in a flight suit and it blew my mind.

The moment I knew I wanted to be a pilot

was when I saw that woman in the flight suit.

Now, when did I actually make the step to become a pilot?

Uh, I actually applied four years,

well, actually three years skipping one year.

Women could only apply once a year

with the Marine Corps to become an officer.

They didn't take my application the first time.

They didn't take it the second time. I skipped a year.

And on the fourth time, they accepted my application.

They say when the door closes another one opens

but they didn't tell you it might be down the hall

and up the stairs or around the corner.

Uh, I have like my winning collectable planes that I like

and I have some on my desk, like this plane.

And I build some of my planes like a Wright Brothers plane,

and I have a lot of the balsa wood throw like paper airplanes and stuff.

One of the windup ones that I've made

and just some posters and a painting.

So I have a lot of, heh, airplane stuff.

So, yeah.

There was a time that daddy and, you, and myself,

we had all gone to the bank.

And, uh, they were doing something with our insurance paperwork

and the lady referred to you as princess.

She said, "Hi, princess..." You were four.

She said, "Hi, princess."

And your usual, you got really angry and you said, "I'm not a princess."

I don't do f... What did you...

"I don't do fairy tales, I do flight plans."

The first time I've flown a plane, I didn't really know.

I just like looking out the window really,

and just seeing everything below me.

We knew Afton was interested in aviation

because if there was ever a plane flying anywhere,

if you're out anywhere, she will stop and stare at the plane.

I mean, but she has been doing that since she was two.

I mean, she could be in a room full of toys

and she's out the window staring at the airplanes.

Uh, take her to a toy store and all she wants to look at are the planes.

That's it. Nothing else. Okay, Legos.

-Legos. -Legos.

Airplane Legos would be like, the ultimate, right?

Um, so she's always been that way.

She's just never... She's never deviated from that.

I mean, even preschool where the child changes their mind every week.

I'm going to be a nurse. I'm going to be a chef.

Princess was a lot in preschool.

A lot of kids said that but what did you always say?

Pilot.

I mean, I have her record from when she was in preschool, at preschool.

She's like four years old and she said, "I'm going to be a pilot"

and it just always stuck.

I think flying behind the yoke and be...

The feel of flying like a bird is just... I like it.

I don't really know how to explain it, just...

I just feel like I'm floating on the sky.

When people say I can't be a pilot, I don't listen to them.

I just keep doing it.

I just like being in the air and mostly when taking off

because it feels kind of like a roller coaster

which I love roller coasters, so...

I grew up in depression years.

And my brother was 13 months older than I.

He graduated high school and he got a scholarship.

There were still expenses sending him there

and there just wasn't enough money to send me.

I had to go out into the working world.

I worked my way up to a private secretary,

always saying, "I wish I had further education."

And then one day I said,

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something about it."

So I looked up at Newark College of Engineering

and they gave night courses and I went to night school.

And I didn't exactly know what I wanted to take up,

but they had a course in aviation.

So I said, "That sounds interesting. I'll take that."

But when the course was finished,

I said, "I think I'll take a flying lesson

and see what this is all about."

Well, the first time I was up, I was hooked.

Well, it was really an issue of fairness that I got involved in aviation.

I actually thought I was going to become a military linguist

because I speak several languages.

The instructor sat all of us down in my class

and said, "Okay, well, men, doesn't matter what your, um,

major is in college,

you have to of your top five choices or ten choices,

the majority of them have to be Combat Arms branches."

And they didn't have a choice.

It was a requirement that they put themselves in the proof of combat.

And then he said, "Except for Duckworth."

I was the only woman in my class.

And he said, "Duckworth doesn't have to put any down because she's female."

And I just thought that was patently unfair

because I knew I was going to get equal pay for equal work

so I felt like I should take equal risks.

And I said, "Well, what, what branch that is Combat Arms is accepting women?"

And they said, "Well, there's only two, Air Defense Artillery and aviation."

And the only one that likely will allow women to see combat anytime soon is aviation.

So I made that my first choice.

It was really out of just feeling that it was important to be fair, too,

and spare the same risk.

And then I got to flight school and just fell in love with it.

I really was looking for something to get can I sink my teeth in, to excel at.

I didn't know what it was going to be

but, I, you know, I knew aviation was going to be a path to that.

I took lessons when I moved to Alaska

and it seems like everybody in Alaska flies,

so I had an opportunity up there to take some lessons.

What started my involvement in aviation was this place right here, really.

You know, a family that loved flying.

Uh, my dad loved to build and fly small airplanes.

And this, you know, Clearwater Air Park was the place that happened.

So as a family, we hung out here a lot.

And I got to work on airplanes.

I got to meet people who love to fly airplanes.

And that was a really interesting and inspiring thing for me.

While I might not remember the exact flight that it was,

I have total memory of getting off the Earth

in an airplane of looking over the,

you know, top of the front cockpit of my dad's airplane.

And, you know, seeing my neighborhood in a totally different way,

that kind of perspective shift that happens

when you have the opportunity to separate from something.

And I think that... that whole, like sense of it, you know,

it was more than just what you see with your eyes,

you're actually feeling it, it becomes part of you,

is what really drove me to want to know how things fly,

to want to fly myself,

to want to consider what opportunities could open up for me because of flying.

I grew up terrified of aviation.

Uh, the only exposure that I had to anything related to flight

were aircraft accidents on... on television and I remember looking over at my mom

and saying, "Mom, I hope I never have to find an airplane."

I would rather take a bus, take a train, walk, crawl.

I just, I never want to get inside of an airplane.

When I was 17 years old, just graduating from high school,

uh, my parents surprised me with an airline ticket for me

to fly from California to Florida.

I made my way to my seat and I sat down strapped in my seatbelt thinking,

"My gosh, this plane is going to launch into the sky like a rocket."

And I hold on to the armrests thinking, "Okay, this is it. It's time to face my fear."

I could feel the, uh... the aircraft accelerating

and lifting off the ground and it was so beautiful and so romantic.

And from that moment on, I knew this is what I want to do the rest of my life.

[upbeat music playing]

[man 2] Roaring into the Oakland Airport

she brings to a triumphant finish

a 2,400-mile hop from Hawaii after 18 hours in the air.

10,000 cheer the end of the epical flight

as Lady Lindy slides into a perfect landing with two records,

the first woman to fly the Pacific Ocean,

the first person to fly it solo.

She receives one of the most tumultuous greetings ever recorded a flyer.

[clatters]

[indistinct chatter]

Roses to Amelia and the plaudits of the world

to a veteran of flights that have shown the way for aviation's progress.

It's our most brilliant chapter in a 16-year aviation career.

How does it feel to fly both oceans, Ms. Earhart?

Well, it was very interesting to me to fly in southern waters rather than in the north.

On the Atlantic flight, I had ice conditions and general storm.

On this flight, really no bad weather at all except a few little rain squalls.

I saw the Moon and stars most of the night.

I think I was 15 or 16. I had just started driving.

I was driving by myself. And I lived about a mile away from Burbank Airport.

And I was driving home and there was a sandwich board on the street.

And it said, "Demo flights $15."

And I pulled over, I call my mom

and I said, "Mom, I really, really, really want to do this.

Uh, there's a flight school that's doing intro flights.

Can you please bring $15 because I don't have it?"

And that was my very first flight

and I had my mom with my baby sister sitting in the back next to my brother.

And I was sitting upfront with the flight instructor and I was on Cloud Eleven.

It was the coolest thing.

The point in my flight training that was really the affirmation

that's what I wanted to do was my first solo.

The Sun was kind of shining through these clouds.

It had just rained,

so it was a beautiful kind of glory moment of like, this is your runway.

This is you. And it was just kind of like a moment

where it kind of took my breath away

and it really was like, this is amazing.

I am controlling this plane. This is what I want to do.

I started flying in flight school in a Huey, Vietnam-era helicopter, a H Moto Huey.

I was one of three officers in my class selected out of 40 to, uh, fly the Black Hawk,

to get trained in the Black Hawk which was considered an advanced aircraft.

I have been flying commercially since I was a little baby

but to be in the flight controls,

to be controlling this aircraft was an amazing thing.

And to think that my country trusted in me to do this,

to protect and defend her, uh, was really quite a privilege.

I initially decided to become a pilot

as a way to further my goals to become an astronaut.

But once I started flying and once I started to get to know the aviation industry

and get more familiar with... with aircraft,

I realized that flying is a passion of its own.

Flying, it's... it's a feeling unlike any other.

Oh, it definitely looks different from up here.

[man 3] Yeah, you can't figure out anything.

[laughs]

[inaudible].

It's something that... I am struggling for words to describe

because flying is so beautiful and so different from daily life.

[woman 1 over the radio] Cessna 959 [inaudible] signal is...

[chuckles]

[man 4 over the radio] [inaudible] Runway 108.

-[man 3] Just like that. -That is so fantastic.

[man 3] Yep.

[laughs] So I had a couple different first-time times flying,

whether it was the first time in a T-34 Charlie Turbo Mentor,

or it was the first time in the Bell Helicopter.

The first time I lifted just the skids broke the deck, right.

I'm flying. This is gold. And I'm just in the backseat.

You feel like you're floating.

Or the first time I climbed into the cockpit of that AH1 Whiskey SuperCobra helicopter,

and feeling it taxi out to the runway, push down on the stick,

pull up on the throttle, feeling that nose go shift

and you could feel that momentum.

Out of all the different experiences

I've had in a first in the cockpit,

they've all been amazing, they've all had their magic

and it will be an experience I'll never forget.

It was tough going from my background of my science

and my math skills and bringing it up to the level

that it needed to be for me to become a pilot,

the one feeling that kept me going every time,

uh, whenever I'd feel down or I felt unmotivated

was the feeling that I would feel in the air.

And for me, um, it... it didn't matter who I was

or what my background was.

It didn't matter that I am a refugee from Afghanistan,

from a family of six girls.

None of those things matter.

When I'm in the airplane and I'm being propelled forward,

all that matters is my ability to fly that aircraft.

And that feeling is something that I have found

and I have from day one wanted to hold on to.

When I went to college and my parents knew I wanted to be a pilot

since I was 14 years old but they insisted that I went to university.

So I went to UC San Diego and I got a degree in an area

that I really just had an interest in as a hobby

but nothing to do with aviation so I got a psychology degree.

It was almost like I took a seven-year vacation

from learning anything about aviation.

And then once I was done with that, walked onto the airport,

started interviewing which flight school I wanted to go to,

got my pilot's rating in 34 days.

Haven't left the airport since.

[upbeat music playing]

[man 4] Mrs. Jerrie Mock

pauses briefly in Oakland, California,

as she nears the end of a successful around the world solo flight.

After a quick check out of her 11-year-old light plane,

the Ohio housewife prepares to take off for Columbus

on the final leg of a 23,000-mile journey with 21 stops in 29 days,

she is the first woman to make the solo world flight

and she's racked up a flock of records in the bargain

as she arrives to a hearty greeting in Columbus.

Tired but happy, Mrs. Mock receives a governmental award for her feat,

honor for a high-flying housewife.

[upbeat music playing]

Well, I knew I wanted to fly myself.

Uh, you know, I wanted to earn my private pilot's license.

I wanted to be able to get off the planet myself in an airplane.

Uh, so I, after high school, uh, went to the local community college.

They had this great program called Aviation Administration.

It was basically kind of aviation business degree or an introduction to it.

But as part of it, you could earn your private pilot's license.

I really had to figure out what is it I wanted to do

and that was more wanting to know how things fly

and that's what led me down the aeronautical engineering path.

And so I just continued to pursue the kind of the love of flying

from the standpoint of how do things fly

and that led me to NASA as a NASA engineer.

[Bernice] Jacqueline Cochran had been trying since 1938 or 1939

to convince the Army Air Corps that they should be training women as well as men.

One day in the newspaper,

there appeared an article about Mrs. Sheehy,

who was going to be interviewing for those who might want to enter the WASP training,

WASP being the Women Air Force Service Pilots.

Uh, I think, there were only when that war started,

December 7th, '41,

uh, 30,000 qualified male pilots.

The main reason that we were formed was to relieve men for active duty.

Let's see if the women can do all the jobs now there were many jobs to be done

and, eventually, we were stationed at a 150 different bases

and that's how I got started in flying for the Army Air Corps.

I was always interested in aerobatics, um...

But I'd never seen it. I'd never been to an air show.

I started saying to my husband, I really am interested in aerobatics.

And I was sitting in, uh, a little FBO in Michigan,

and I found this Sport Aerobatics Magazine,

which is the international aerobatic club magazine.

And, uh, I said, "Look, there's a whole club devoted to this.

There's contests and articles about it."

I was just fascinated. I read every single word.

So, he said, "Okay, let's go to an air show

and we go to a competition and see how you like it."

So we flew our plane, we had a Cessna 185,

and we flew our plane down to Canada, went to an air show,

and then we flew it to Minnesota, or to Wisconsin,

to a contest.

Um, and I got to see that, too, and I was just blown away.

I said, "That's... that's what I want to do. I can do that."

My first ten hours of aerobatics was with a woman in Anchorage, Alaska,

and in her decathlon.

It took me a while to find a teacher.

And, uh, I loved it. I was... I was so excited about doing it.

I was afraid for some reason it wouldn't agree with me

and I wouldn't be good at it, that was my big fear.

But when I had to go up the first time and do it,

it was a big deal, I went up really high. It went okay.

You know, you got to put your money where your mouth is here, you know, heh.

[Afton] So we're at the Florida Strawberry Festival

and I am dropping off my two chickens, Georgia and Bessie.

I named some of my chickens after female aviators

because I'm really into aviation,

and I thought it'd be a good name for them.

And kind of their colors they kind of remind me of the flight suits and stuff

that they wore.

[clucking]

Shh.

It's okay. Good girl.

[clucking]

Good girl. Don't be stressed out. It's going to be okay.

[rooster crows]

My hobbies, um...

I love my chickens and I take them to shows, in race chickens,

build Legos, obviously, um, and I also like golfing.

We originally, um, sent her to a, um, green school, an all-green school.

Um, they had a garden and such.

Uh, they also had chickens.

It was a great school, A school. A-rated school.

There's a waitlist. There's a waiting list to get in.

Friend of mine had gone, and myself gone and looked.

She's a teacher and she was looking at different teachers' options.

And they had an open house of lots of different schools,

and we found an open house.

We weren't thinking of changing her schools,

but they had, uh, flight simulators in an elementary school.

And I was like, whoa.

And so...

Joel and I decided to make the switch which is crazy,

because the school really didn't get rated the "highest".

Um, but you know what, it rated the highest for her needs.

It had what she needed, what she craved, what she thrived in.

I think it has expanded her horizons

and made her think so far outside the box and on a whole different level.

[man 5] Ladies and gentleman,

what you've just seen is a way man is not intended to fly.

And let me tell you what, that's not a man flying.

That's many-time national champion, Patty Wagstaff,

in her extra aircraft, ladies and gentlemen.

One of the most skilled pilots on the airshow circuit today,

a three-time U.S- National Aerobatic Champ,

six-time member of the U.S. aerobatic team,

and a six-time winner

of the Betty Skelton First Lady of Aerobatics award.

Patty's won so many awards for her flying.

In 2004, she was inducted into the national aviation hall of fame.

She's received both the National Air and Space Museum

for current achievement

and the U.S. Air Force Lifetime Achievement Award.

And the airplane, the early one she flew,

the Prototype Extra 260 hangs in the U.S. National Air and Space Museum,

very close to those of Amelia Earhart.

Basically, I spent, you know, seven years of my life

just thinking, eating, breathing,

um, being a full-time, you know, professional aerobatic pilot,

with the goal of winning the Nationals.

The men didn't see that a woman could win the Nationals,

and so the overall championship.

And I started seeing, you know, the sexism and, um, the mindset.

This isn't a sport like tennis where we're built differently.

This is... this is an airplane and the airplane doesn't know the difference.

And so I said, "Well, you know, why hasn't a woman won the Nationals?"

And the men would say, "Well, women aren't aggressive enough."

Or, "Well, the judges would never let it happen."

Or, you know, "They just don't have what it takes."

I started it as an education process of,

you know, of course, a woman can win.

You know, we don't do anything any different.

The airplane doesn't know the difference.

And there's no reason why women can't win.

Then after I won the first time, a friend said,

"You know, you've got to win again."

I'm like, "Why is that?"

He said, "Because they'll think it's a fluke"

because you're a woman."

So you have to do more than a guy would have to do."

So I made it my goal to win three times.

And since then, a number of women have won the U.S. Nationals,

which is really cool and the next woman that won it,

um, somebody came up and said, "So how do you feel?

Do you feel jealous?" And I said, "Are you kidding?

That's just what I would hope for."

I was hoping that other women would win.

I was tired of being this kind of a freak and a fluke

and, "Well, she's different," you know, "She is more aggressive," which is not true.

Um, I just put the same into it than anybody else would.

[tranquil music playing]

[man 5] Well, Patty gets a good sight on it.

She's going to turn that extremely inverted position

and see if she can cut the ribbon upside down,

all approaching at an approximately 120 miles an hour.

I believe the ribbon is in peril.

Let's keep your eyes on it. Get those cameras rolling.

She comes down on the deck.

Watch for her to go to the inverted position and line up on that ribbon.

I think that ribbon's lifespan is going to be very short.

Here she comes.

Remember, less than 22 feet off the ground,

inverted show center.

Oh, that ribbon is a dead money.

She's got a beautiful job. How about that?

Give her a big round of applause, ladies and gentlemen.

This is Patty Wagstaff.

[upbeat music playing]

[man 6] This is Texas, cradle of our army's Air Force.

This is an AAF field too,

but over headquarters ride the strange,

little girl gremlin called Fifinella.

And out of those buses are stepping girls,

girls who give a new angle to an air force story.

They're WASPS: Women's Air Force Service Pilots.

It was experimental.

The Army Air Corps didn't know whether women

would be capable of living the military life

and flying the military aircraft.

Here we were trained just the way the male cadets were trained.

Up at 6AM, a half a day of flying

and a half a day of ground school.

And everything was... was military.

We were treated military all the way through.

And, yet, we were not military.

Fortunately, uh, I always had good instructors.

They were serious about it.

They didn't mind teaching female.

There were some instructors that resented the fact.

I mean, this is their field flying airplanes.

Women should not be flying airplanes.

And there was one incident where, uh, women were sent to B26 School,

and when they got there,

the instructor that was supposed to check them out in the B26 said...

[laughs] "I'm not teaching any damn women how to fly."

Well, he had to. It was an order.

Once you graduated and had your wings,

then we were sent to a field to do something.

Some of the commanding officers there,

they did not want women on their base.

A lot of people had a misconception

and did not really, really know exactly what we were doing.

Now there were many jobs to be done.

You need to fly gunners

so they have practice shooting from a moving aircraft.

You need towed targets so the anti-aircraft can practice shooting.

You need pilots to fly at nights so the beams have practice.

So all those involved a pilot.

Sometimes, the anti-aircraft gunners

that were learning how to shoot them

would hit the airplane instead of the target.

And there was one case where the aircraft crashed.

And she couldn't get the hatch open.

And then there was another case

where someone had put sugar in the gas tank.

And when that aircraft took off, it crashed and she was killed.

There were 38 of us that were killed in the line of service.

So it was not a frivolous job.

[man 7] Graduation day means that they've grown up.

They're army fliers.

As they know their experience here has been no interlude for romantic adventure

but a period of intensive training for a highly important job.

At the moment, there is a bill in Congress to bring them into the Air Force.

In June of 1944,

the bill was defeated that would have made us a part of the Army Air Corps.

And, you know, you had other people in service.

I mean, the WAACS had their women's corps.

The WAVES, the SPARS, they were all recognized,

and they were all given the benefits.

And the WASPS were not, even though we were treated as military.

When we all knew that we were going to be disbanded December 20th,

we decided to have an organization.

Uh, the main purpose at that time was to get information

about what kind of flying jobs there were,

and get the information out and then we would have reunions.

So this organization continued on.

I was the president of the organization from '75 to '78.

And, uh, Colonel Arnold, General Arnold's son,

came to one of our reunions and he said,

because he was a lobbyist in Washington,

and he said, "I will help you, girls,

to get recognition as veterans of World War ll," which he did.

[calm music playing]

And, incidentally, we were, in 2010...

we were issued the Congressional Gold Medal given to us by Congress.

And this is a small replica of the medal.

Other one, if I put it on a chain,

I'd be walking like this, it's big.

[man 8]As they go up to receive their wings from the top woman pilot of them all,

the founder of the WASPS, Ms. Jacqueline Cochran.

Each WASP, like other women in other services,

has achieved no little thing.

She has gone into a man's world because the men needed her,

gone through a tough ordeal as just a girl

and come out a girl pilot with a U-S. Army Air Force.

The one thing that pleases me the most is that I got my wings.

That here's this gal who came from nowhere

and she's flying an airplane and she's earning her wings.

[tranquil music playing]

I wasn't nervous. I was excited about it.

I had waited about six weeks, um, to get my first top up

and I was in the front seat and it was pretty awesome.

It's pretty awesome.

The Cobra flies pretty aggressively, uh, nose down

when you're just traveling at about 130 knots about 90 degrees nose down.

So how you see the aircraft here is straight and level

and it's, you know, going through the sky like,

you know, ready to attack, basically.

So it's awesome, awesome feeling.

When I move to my fleet helicopter,

which was the AH1 Whiskey SuperCobra in the Marine Corps, just amazing.

When you see it in pictures, it just, it doesn't look that big.

And I remember the first time walking into the hangar

and I walked through the door and this huge thing just loomed in front of me

and it was like, wow, really speechless for a moment.

Wow, I'm going to be flying that?

Then you learn to fly the Cobra.

Then you learn to fight the Cobra or flying just becomes second nature.

Now, it's a machine in battle, saving lives.

We had been out for a little over an hour.

We were taken at a target that was known to have munitions in it.

Uh, you know, bombs, missiles, explosives,

C4s, uh, rocket, anything and everything

the enemy could use to create lEDs, improvised explosive devices.

Hour into the mission, we got a call from one of the ground controllers.

And you could hear the desperation in this guy's voice.

He said, "Viper, we have Marines and soldiers pinned down

north of the cemetery, and they need your help."

And, at that moment,

if you could have felt the acid bomb explode in my stomach,

because we had been out for a little over an hour.

And that meant we probably maybe only had 20 minutes of fuel

left on the aircraft.

And on top of that, we only had one missile left on our aircraft

because we'd been trying to take out that target.

Gutsy move. Marines don't leave Marines behind.

Next ground controller checks in even more desperate than the first guy.

"Viper, we're pinned down.

We don't have any ammunition to shoot back

because we don't even have any green smoke to mark our position.

Let me know when you can see the glint from my mirror."

When you are down to signaling with a mirror,

the size of the palm of your hand, you're in trouble.

As I scan down into that cemetery,

looking for any sign of our friendly forces,

I saw small glint come out, "Contact, I see you."

Viper, do you see that road in front of me running from east to west?

Follow it to the west.

You're going to see another road that runs north and south. Follow it to the south.

You're going to see a building with a tower sticking out of it with a blue dome at the top.

Call when you contact that building.

Follow the road to the west. Follow the road to the south.

Building, tower, blue dome. Contact.

Break right! Break right quickly!

I'm like, why? Because now small arms fire

is coming out of that tower trying to take us out of the sky.

We flew around.

I turned that selector switch over to that very last missile.

We pop up over the ridge.

We are now searching, scanning for our target.

Target in sight. Aircraft pops up.

Finger on the trigger waiting to come in range

and waiting for that magical phrase, "You have permission to engage."

We got the phrase, I pulled the trigger, "Missile away," I called out.

Nothing happened.

Marines and soldiers on the ground,

inevitably, getting ready to go into hand-to-hand combat

if we didn't come through.

We reset a couple of switches.

Turn the selector switch back over to the last missile for one final try.

Pull the trigger, phew. Missile comes off the rail.

Impacts the target. Pull off to the right. Head back to base.

Check in with the duty officer what happened with the mission.

"Ma'am, target was destroyed.

Marines and soldiers will be coming home tonight."

It was absolutely amazing.

And an experience I will never forget.

But that's not even it. So now I'm back at home.

Back from the deployment.

And I'm standing in the hospital line waiting for a routine doctor's appointment

in front of me,and I'm talking to the marine "Hey, marine, how you doing? What's going on?"

He said, "Well, Ma'am, I have some shrapnel in my left leg."

I said, "Whoa, shrapnel!

Were you recently deployed?" He said, "Yes, Ma'am.

Iraq, [inaudible]." I said, "Hey, I was in Iraq.

I was your Cobra air support."

He said, "Oh, Ma'am, you... you fly Cobras?

We were in the cemetery. We were pinned down.

A Cobra came in, shot a missile."

I was like, wait a minute. That sounds like a mission I was on.

Paired it up. Same mission. Same aircraft. Same missile.

And we start hooping and hollering right there in the middle of the hospital.

And then he just stopped. And he said, "Ma'am, you saved my life."

[somber music playing]

[light music playing]

[Whitney] Just a few years ago,

Shaesta Waiz was a student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Now the Afghanistan-born pilot is flying this plane around the world

She's aiming to be the youngest woman ever

to complete a solo around the world flight.

She started here in Daytona Beach, Florida,

and plans to make 34 stops including those in Europe,

Egypt, India, Thailand, and Australia.

Just three percent of the world's pilots are women

and it's something Shaesta Waiz and the industry are hoping to change.

She hopes it will inspire the next generation of female pilots to soar.

Whitney Hearst, Al Jazeera.

When I told my family that I first wanted to fly around the world,

it was a lot of, "Great, I hope it works out."

You know, in the back of their minds, they thought,

"Well, she's young.

This is an ambition that every pilot must want to do,"

and they didn't really take it serious.

When they saw other people investing in me,

and this dream that I had, that's when they realized "This is...

this is something she is going to pursue."

I wanted to do something for those girls,

for girls all over the world, to show them that,

you know, no matter where you come,

what background you are from, you can excel, you can soar.

Now, an Afghan pilot hoping to become the youngest woman

in history to complete a solo run around the world

just took on the trans-Atlantic leg of her journey.

[woman 3] She wants to be an inspiration.

And, in Afghanistan, Shaesta Waiz is welcomed as a hero.

She inspires Afghan girls to have big dreams for their future

and to do something about those dreams.

Like me, I want to be a pilot.

Waiz says she plans to have events like this at most of her 30 stops

around the world to encourage young people,

especially women and girls to get involved in science,

technology, engineering, and math.

If she completes the journey,

Waiz will become only the eighth woman ever to fly solo

around the world and the first Afghan.

Dreams Soar global flight consisted of 145 days flying around the world,

25,000 nautical miles across five continents.

I had the chance of visiting 22 different countries,

but most importantly it was me meeting with 3,000 children face to face

and introducing them to aviation and STEM.

My co-pilot was a 59-gallon aluminum fuel tank,

uh, and my passengers, all those backseats removed,

and it was a 125-gallon fuel tank that sat right directly behind me.

Um, my seat was pretty stiff. I couldn't incline my seat back.

It was just, you know, this... this small area that I had to work with

and to get in and outside of the aircraft,

the Bonanza only has one side door

that's located on the co-pilot's seat.

So I literally had to jump over my co-pilot fuel tank to get into my seat

and, uh... and that's how I flew around the world.

In total, I carried 300 gallons of Avgas, aviation gasoline.

And, uh, my longest leg where I needed that much fuel

was across the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii to California.

It was 14.5 hours of being in the same position over the Big Blue,

the big Pacific Ocean, by myself.

There was a very thick, overcast layer that came over

uh, and the sun had set behind me.

So for about three hours, I was in complete lFR weather conditions

where it felt like my aircraft was not moving

uh, because I had no references outside to look at.

So I just kept my eyes inside the cockpit looking at my... my instruments.

And I just remember when I saw that San Francisco coast,

I was just dancing on my seat, like, yes, I see land.

[tranquil music playing]

An Afghan pilot has made history

by becoming the youngest woman to complete a solo flight

around the world in a single-engine aircraft.

Shaesta Waiz completed a 25,000-mile or 40,000-kilometer journey

after landing her Beechcraft Bonanza A36 Aircraft in Florida, October 4th.

For United News International, I'm Neela Eyuni.

I hope that you know that your legacy will be measured in the service of every woman

who follows in the trails that you've blazed.

Every woman who benefits from your daring and determination.

Uh, it will be measured in the inspiration that you provide to our daughters

and our granddaughters and to our sons and our grandsons as well.

When they ask what kind of jobs they can do,

they can look to women like all of you

who've played just about every kind of role imaginable.

They can look to Tammy Duckworth who flew combat missions in Iraq

and lost both her legs when her helicopter was hit by a grenade.

She went on to become a fearless advocate for veterans and wounded warriors

and now serves as Assistant Secretary of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs

at the Veterans Affairs Department.

Thank you, Tammy.

[applause]

In Iraq, um, I was the assistant operations officer.

My job was to coordinate missions for our battalion task force of 44 aircraft.

And then I also begged and pleaded

and wheedled my way into getting to fly twice a week,

which was the best part of my job.

It was important to me to fly the missions

because I didn't want to be sending other pilots out on missions outside the wire

and facing a danger if I wasn't also doing it

but also because I just loved to fly. [laughs]

And it was freedom and it was exhilarating.

And, and the more I... the more time I spent in the military flying,

the more I realized I'm a little bit of an adrenaline junkie and a speed demon.

And... and, I got to do that,

and... and being with my guys and the aircraft, um, was just the best,

most rewarding thing I have ever done in my entire life.

And so I wanted to do that.

And, um, it was just a regular mission on a regular day.

I'd been flying all day long, um, and we got hit by the enemy.

This was about the timeframe of the Second Battle for Fallujah.

So it was a pretty rough time and we were outside a little ways away from Fallujah

and what got me was some insurgents who had been flushed out of Fallujah.

And they, uh... they... they got lucky and they shot us down.

Um, I was passing in and out

but we were able to land the aircraft.

If I helped any, urn, uh, then that's great.

But really the pilot in command,

um, Chief Warrant Officer Dan Milberg is the true hero of the day, and got me to safety.

And then I spent 13 months in the hospital recovering trying to get back to my unit.

I learned to take calculated risks and not to be afraid of failure

when I went through the military, that's the biggest thing.

Prior to the military, I probab... I tended to be a perfectionist.

And I would not have taken the risk that I didn't know,

I could definitely ace and achieve,

uh, and going to flights, it was the first thing I ever really did

that was, uh, I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it.

But I knew I was going to try and I knew that I knew how to work hard.

Uh, I was by no means the best natural pilot in my class.

But I logged more simulator hours than anybody in my class

because I would fly the entire day.

And then I would go fly three additional hours every night,

uh, and then just to make sure I was as competitive as I could be,

and I knew how to work hard.

I actually ended up serving 13 more years after I lost my legs.

Um, when Senator Durbin and Senator Obama came to me

and said, "We think you should run for Congress,"

I had that foundation of willingness to try

and knowing that no matter what happened, I knew how to work hard.

And if I didn't achieve what I was trying that would be okay and I didn't, I lost.

I lost that election.

It was devastating to me but I knew I gave it everything that I had.

And so I was able to walk away from that holding my head high,

um, which I think gave me the strength to, six years later, try another run.

We are just as proud of all the Thai-Americans who enrich our country.

In fact, I was mentioning to His Majesty, that my friend, uh, Ladda Tammy Duckworth,

just became the first Thai-American woman ever to be elected to our Congress.

And she's from my home state of Illinois, so I'm especially proud of her.

[man 9] Kennedy Space Center native, Nicole Stott who worked here,

processing shuttles for many years before becoming an astronaut.

She is Mission Specialist 4.

[crowd cheering]

[man 10] This is a very historical walkway.

It's the same path that the Apollo astronauts took to go to the Moon.

And over the last 30 years, there's been 133 odd shuttle crews

that walked out here to catch this bus

for the exciting ride out to the launch pad.

All systems are go.

About 90 seconds away from the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery

on her final mission.

-[man 11] 20. -[man 10] 20 seconds.

The sound suppression water system

has been activated protecting Discovery

and the launch pad from acoustical energy wave.

[man 11] We'll have to go for main engine start.

[man 10] Go for main engine start. We have main engine start.

Two, one.

Booster ignition and the final lift-off of Discovery.

A tribute to the dedication, hard work,

and pride of America's Space Shuttle team.

The shuttle has cleared the tower.

[hissing]

[man 12] This is Mission Control Houston.

The space shuttle now rolled over on to its back

for they have been arrived into orbit.

Discovery now making one last reach for the stars.

[calm music playing]

I didn't get selected that first time.

Uh, and I was upset.

I mean, I remember being upset about it, but it wasn't surprising to me.

Um, and, but I didn't find it discouraging either.

I found it like, okay, you went through this.

And now, two years from now,

they will do another selection, apply again.

But I also got really lucky that first time

because they offered me a job out at the Johnson Space Center

uh, flying on the shuttle training aircraft as a flight engineer.

So I was going to get to sit center seat in this airplane

that's modified like you wouldn't want any airplane to be modified.

So it could, you know, approach the runway like a space shuttle does

with an astronaut in the left seat that you're training

and the instructor pilot in the right seat

and I was going to get to be like the flight engineer would be on the space shuttle.

And it was awesome.

It was exactly like the kinds of things you would have to do

if you were flying on a space shuttle.

And two years later, I interviewed again and was selected.

I don't ever remember being afraid.

I remember being very respectful,

very, you know, acknowledging,

uh, the place I was, what I was about to do.

Uh, but I also felt very trained.

The fear for me was more about, how... What my family was experiencing.

Because I know it's a lot more difficult to watch somebody strapped

into a rocket to fly than it is to be the person strapping in.

My first time flying, my son was seven,

and the idea of something happening to him on Earth

and not being able to get there.

That's where like, fear and maybe a little of the stress of it was for me.

So I had the chance to talk to a lot of people

who had flown before to watch a lot of space shuttle launches.

So, in my mind, I had kind of convinced myself that I knew what it would be like.

You just can't prepare yourself for it.

And I did it a second time thinking,

oh, I did that before, you know, now I know what it's like.

Well, it's like you're doing it all over again.

And as a shuttle crew,

you would get out there to the pad a couple of hours before launch.

And you'd get all strapped in, you're, you know, you're laying on your back

because the vehicle is facing up.

And it really though for the crew wasn't until about 20 minutes before launch

that you would actively get involved with the countdown.

Six seconds is where all this fuel and that big orange tank

would start flow into the three main engines at the back of the shuttle.

And I always thought that would be really dynamic.

I thought I'd be shaking all over the place with that.

I thought it would be really loud. But it wasn't.

It was more kind of a just like muffly sound, uh, in the headset

and a little bit of vibration

and at zero, that's when those two big white solid rocket boosters lit.

And that was the "Holy molly, was I ever on a launch pad."

You know, you're felt like you were kicked from behind.

It felt like, all of a sudden, three of you are starting to crawl on top of you.

You're shaking like, I mean, it... I've watched the cockpit video.

It does not show what, I mean, it shows shaking

but it does not show what you were feeling.

I mean, it felt like Jell-O inside the way you're shaking.

Uh, the first minute and a half of a shuttle launch,

all the crew can really do is monitor,

you know, monitor their systems on the display.

You know, about two and a half minutes later, the booster separate.

And they do that not gracefully. It's a big bang, a big flash.

[hissing]

[explodes]

And then, all that vibration goes away

but you still feel like you have three of you sitting on top of you.

And for another about six minutes, um, then the tank separates.

Another big bang, big flash.

And then you go from shaking, weighted down to just kind of like liberated.

Your, you know, from zero to eight and a half minutes,

you've gone from being on that launch pad to orbiting the planet at 17,500 miles an hour,

and just floating.

I mean, your arms float up.

Your pencil floats up on the end of the tether.

Anything that's not tied down is floating up around you

and you just absolutely can't wait to get out of the seat

and see what it's going to be like to... to fly,

I mean, literally fly yourself in space.

That first view out the window is, uh, actually I would say every view.

Every time you had the opportunity to look out the window

it's... it's just like launch was.

It's overwhelmingly impressive

and in different ways than launch was for sure

but just in this kind of like beautiful, unexpected,

going to surprise you every time, glowing planet kind of way.

And it's another one of those things where I looked at a lot of pictures.

I looked at a lot of video.

I talked to people about that, you know, view out the window

but nothing prepares you for what it really is like.

And it stays with you.

It's, I mean, I think about that first flight in the airplane,

where, you know, where those first flights in airplanes

where you really are appreciating, uh, from a totally new perspective,

you know, who and where you are, uh, by separating from it.

And... and, that's what I felt like all the time in space was,

wow, I'm really, I am blessed with this gift that's allowing me to consider,

you know, who I am and where I am from in a whole new really special way.

The space station program to me

has been just the best example

of how we should be living and working here on Spaceship Earth,

and how we should be encouraging people to,

you know, acknowledge their role as crew members on Spaceship Earth

and not just be passengers.

[man 13] Space Shuttle Discovery now on final approach to the Kennedy Space Center.

Just more than 30 seconds to go.

[tranquil music playing]

Discovery here is down and locked.

[inaudible] touchdown.

The nose of the shuttle being rotated down toward the flight deck.

The parachute being deployed.

And nose gear touchdown and the end of a historic journey.

And to the ship that has led the way time and time again,

we say farewell Discovery.

[door closes]

It's just, I feel like I'm floating and I'm free.

It's kind of and it's relaxing sometimes.

It's not the same as a real plane,

but the simulator does have some benefits.

It's not like you have to look book of flight.

I'm about to do a barrel, um, through Tampa, Downtown Tampa.

The plane doesn't judge me on how tiny I am or if I'm a girl.

[clacking]

Nobody in my family was in aviation at all.

Just me.

Neither one of us are from the aviation field.

So I'm like, I'm not really sure here.

So, I mean, it was, you know, internet search or anytime like I read,

"Oh, there's a, you know, an air show over here at this field."

We go to the air show.

Uh, if there is a movie that comes out, we watch the movie.

If there is a, um, book, we read the book.

Uh, we've gone and listened to talks from astronauts and such at museums.

Um, so we do just about anything.

Most people don't get interested in aviation.

They just think, "Oh, it's an airplane. It gives you travel."

But it's more than that.

My friends think it's kind of weird because none of them want to be a pilot.

None of them have anything to do with it at all,

so, like, some of them just want to play like video games or, heh, something.

And I want to fly airplanes not on a video game, like a real airplane.

I don't think they're not interested in aviation.

I don't think they get the chance.

They think, "Oh, I'm a girl. I can't do that."

She doesn't let anything stop her.

She usually will go, huh.

I get this is difficult but I can do it.

And she usually just takes a deep breath and just keeps on going.

Aviation has given me so many opportunities,

um, and it does to every pilot.

It's just amazing where it has taken me.

I have had opportunities to go train the Kenya Wildlife Service pilots in Kenya.

It's been incredibly rewarding working with these pilots.

I've gotten to be really good friends with them,

and I've traveled all over Kenya.

The thing that I'm doing now that I'm really, really excited about

and I just love to go to work every day

and do is, um, our aerobatic school here in St. Augustine, Florida.

I am finding that I love it more than almost anything I've done.

It's just... It's been great.

[Nicole] I had the chance to paint while I was in space.

And I painted a picture of a place that I thought was really beautiful on Earth.

Uh, the whole experience of watercolor painting in space

is a little bit different, you know, with floating balls of water bursts

versus dip in your, you know, your brush in a glass.

And when I was thinking about retiring from NASA,

but wanting, really wanting to uniquely share the spaceflight experience,

I kept coming back to that painting.

And that one painting has led to others,

you know, and I am doing art now as a post-NASA person.

So about two months before my commercial rating,

I started to ask all the businesses

around Santa Monica Airport if they were hiring.

Cirrus was just creating a job called a regional sales coordinator

that moved airplanes for new customers

and gave demo flights to support the sale staff.

I got hired on my commercial rating on my birthday

and I even launched a company, um, called the Abingdon Company.

As I was doing this,

this job of moving all these airplanes for Cirrus which I did for two years,

I really realized that ferrying airplanes

and delivering them to customers was just a passion of mine.

It's so much fun to take a small airplane,

test your limits as a pilot and expand your comfort zone

and fly it across the Pacific Ocean.

I love aviation because it's a whole different world.

It's some place that's so like a family,

but it can take you anywhere in the world.

And the more I'm in it, the more I see that there's more people to know,

there's more things to see, there's more experiences.

So becoming a pilot and working as a pilot, especially an airline pilot,

you get to basically be wherever you end up and explore the whole world.

You don't really see borders anymore.

You just kind of see the whole world as a place to explore.

Something that I do worry a lot about with having a goal

or a dream that's this big and this far out in the future,

is what if I end up 20 years down the road from here

and I wasn't an astronaut?

I don't regret it now.

I can't imagine that I'll regret it in the future

because this pursuit of becoming an astronaut, of going to Mars,

has led me to have so many fantastic experiences in my life.

The idea that it might happen makes it all worth it.

[tranquil music playing]

[Vernice] The important thing about what women did early on in the whole aviation field,

in the industry is they stood up,

you know, I will often say a quote, you know, stand up

and be counted because you never know who's counting on you.

They didn't know I would be counting on them.

A lot of women, they wanted to prove that, you know, they could do it,

that they had just as much right to do it as the men did.

[Shaezta] Some of the barriers that women faced early on in aviation

is really proving that they can be in command and they can make decisions.

They can be around machines and engines.

And I think, um, it was a struggle back then

to change this perception that the world had of women.

[Heather] And, you know, aviation at that time was such a dangerous adventure.

Planes were new. Technology was new.

You didn't know what was going to happen, what was going to go wrong at any moment.

So for them to be willing to take that risk on top of being told,

"Oh, you're a girl, you can't be doing that kind of thing."

And it was really, really phenomenal.

They had to really have this amazing mental strength

to kind of put themselves out there

with the unfortunate result of having to be compared to their male counterparts.

There were men at the time that were supporting of them.

Will Rogers, Wiley Post, Amelia Earhart's husband,

of course, was very supportive of women flying.

But there were a lot of people and not just men that were against women flying.

There were other women against women flying saying,

"They're making us look bad and they should be home taking care of their households."

Even when Bessie Coleman wanted to fly and she couldn't fly here

because she was black, right? Because black folks weren't allowed to fly.

She learned French and went to France and got her license.

They weren't going to take no for an answer.

They wanted to try something. They saw the adventure.

From Harry Quimby saying, she wanted to fly across the English Channel

and Pancho Barnes to say, "No, I'm not going to put a skirt on.

I'm not going to put a dress on."

They didn't stop at anything.

Those were the true pioneers.

Those were the women who paved a way for girls like me

to envision myself in aviation such a male-dominated industry.

Some of the harassment that they went through.

I mean, I can't, honestly, I can't even imagine some of the things that they went through.

I am able to walk down the trail because they blazed it and that's just pretty amazing.

Women have played an important role in aviation and aerospace history.

Since the beginning, the early fliers, even from Katharine Wright,

you know, through Amelia Earhart and Bessie Coleman, you know,

they served as inspiration for the women that were in the air races

who then served for inspiration for the women who became the WASP in World War ll.

Every generation is laying the foundation for the next generation to reach higher,

reach more goals and achieve, you know, greater, greater dreams.

[Abigail] I mean, they were groundbreakers.

They... they laid the path that the rest of us are capable of walking now.

And if we didn't have the... the women who were the early pioneers of aviation

then, I mean, I wouldn't be flying today.

[dramatic music playing]

[upbeat music playing]

You work hard, Joe. You are a good foreman.

Yes, women work and do present problems, Joe.

It's tough, I know, but there are thousands of others just like you,

all over the country facing the same problems.

[Joe] Women scare me. At least, they do in a factory.

Well, heh, maybe the women are scared, too, Joe.

It's a totally unfamiliar world.

[quirky music playing]

You see, they're not naturally familiar with mechanical principles nor machines.

It takes time to make them feel at home.

But it can be done.

You talk like a man who knows women.

We'll see, Joe. We'll see.

[upbeat music playing]

Some of the things I've heard and misconceptions I've heard from people

about women in aviation is that you can't have the family

and be a career woman, too.

Or how we... we don't know how to fix a plane.

You know, the idea that you're emasculating your husband

possibly if he is not interested in flying but you are

because, obviously, airplanes are made for men.

I mean, that's... There's so many different social, um, etiquettes

that women are supposed to abide by.

Even today, if I don't get recognized

and I'm taxiing in somewhere in an airplane with two people in it,

and I have a guy in the right seat, and I'm in the left seat,

and I hear this from other women all the time.

They always ask the man in the plane for the fuel order.

So there's still this conception out there and it happens all the time.

We still have a long way to go.

You know, I remember walking into an FBO and in my flight suit

and they would ask me if I was the flight attendant,

you know, like Air Force on a C12 or something else

"No, I'm the pilot." [laughs]

There was a student pilot on the radios who was a young girl,

and she was struggling and sure enough,

I heard someone get on the radio and say,

"Another empty kitchen" meaning here's another woman

who's attempting to fly rather than being in the kitchen cooking.

I think, girls get away from STEM in middle school

because they are told to look a certain image

and stop what they really want to be.

There's a societal stigma against women being in STEM fields.

And it's this idea that you can't both be feminine

and be in STEM fields.

The view was that we had to be tough and we had to be macho

and, you know, come across kind of tough

and I still get that when I get out of the plane,

they're like, "Oh, you're so small.

And, um, "Oh, you know, you wear earrings," and things like that.

People expect, you know... They have this stereotype of

what a professional athlete or a professional pilot should look like.

And... and, so it was important to me just to be who I was.

Well, the first reaction every time is, "What?

You're in aviation? How is that possible?"

And I was like, "Well, what do you do?"

And that sometimes, and I love, one of my friends is a pilot.

And so it's really funny when we go places and we fly in

and they're looking for the guy who flew us there,

and she's like, "No, I got it. I got the keys to the plane. It's okay.

We made it."

It's not about being the strongest but it is about flying smart.

Being smart.

Inside the cockpit and outside the cockpit.

Being efficient, delegating,

uh, thinking about it different.

Not trying to just strong-arm it,

but, okay, it's not how to do more with less.

How do we do it differently?

[Nicole] The rocket ship doesn't care if I am a boy or a girl.

You know, the airplane doesn't care.

The robotic hand controllers don't care.

And so from that sense, as long as I can successfully learn the material

and complete the tasks, that's how I thought about it.

Women make up, what is it, 51% of the population

and so if we're not encouraging women to be in STEM fields

then we're losing out on 50% of the brain power, on 50% of the creativity,

on 50% of the different perspectives that we could be having.

The most successful work will get done when you bring together,

you know, different experiences and different backgrounds to, you know, to achieve something.

Whether you're a man or a woman, you're black or white,

or you're a different religion, none of that matters

when you get into the plane here and there

like as long as you know what you're doing.

I don't always want to be the only one.

I think, us girls should stand up for each other

and be as one and support each other in the STEM field.

I think, it's really, really important for there to be a mix in aviation, men and women,

because women bring different outlook, a different approach to things.

The airplane might not know the difference

but we still have some different approaches to things

and so it's really, really important that we share that with each other,

that we, that our contributions are valued.

Well, I think that we just need more women in all fields.

We as a nation can't be globally competitive and we can't lead the economy,

our military cannot be strong depending on just 50% of our population.

Women are a precious commodity in this country just as the men are

and so why would we limit ourselves to just half of our population?

If we truly want to be competitive,

then we need everyone to participate.

It's just important for us to be visible.

So my little girl who is two years old, sees all the opportunities

and thinks that she is absolutely capable of,

just because we don't see women there

doesn't mean we weren't capable to do it.

Does it mean, you know, we're not capable?

Absolutely not.

Now we need to make sure we're giving each other the opportunities to get there.

And we're not going to wait for a break. We have to make our break.

I would tell any girl that is looking to get involved to aviation

that you can do whatever you set your mind to.

Don't be afraid to go be the only person there.

Don't be afraid to be the first, you know.

You might be the first person to do something and that's okay.

Research it. Talk to people. Don't be afraid.

Don't let fear hold you back.

Why let someone else tell you what you can do and what you can't do

or let someone else put an idea into your head of what you can do.

You're in control of that. Apply for it.

There's nothing that's stopping you from doing it.

And... and, you may not like it.

I happen to love it and fall in love with it, but you may not like it.

If you don't, then you walk away, but it's on your terms.

It would be terrible if you went out into the working world

and you had a job that you just hated.

I mean, can you imagine getting up in the morning

and going to something that you really don't like to do?

Try different things, and see whether you like doing that

and whether you would like doing that every day.

You have to love what you're doing to excel at it.

And, you know, the word passion I think is way overused in this stuff.

I don't, you know, find your passion, to me, is just such a pat thing to say.

I would say passion comes when you find what you love.

It's something, it's a result of that.

It's not something people just wake up and have.

What I've seen in the aviation world especially is...

there are so many opportunities to take advantage of,

to just get introduced to it.

Places like this, I tell you what, you walk through the door of,

you know, the office or the little hangar of one of these airports,

and you seek out the people that are working on airplanes

and are excited and love it themselves.

They want to share it with you.

Aviation is an amazing community and you don't have to be a pilot.

I have a lot of friends that are, you know, airport managers,

engineers, air traffic controllers.

Some advice I would give to a girl who wants to be in aviation

or in space exploration is to start working now,

join robotics, go online.

There are lots of opportunities now for our generation.

You're not limited to the community that are physically around you.

We have this capacity to have communication around the world in... in seconds,

at the touch of a finger.

Use that. Go out there.

Find other people who have similar passions, similar dreams

or maybe even people who've already done what you want to do.

The one piece of advice that

I would absolutely have to give is follow your gut,

not the conditioned gut,

not the one that people taught you to do this,

taught you to do that, taught you to... Your authentic self.

That... that voice on the inside.

You know what's right and it takes guts to do it, but you got to take action.

That... that voice is you and you're doing it for you.

It's not the thing that you do for anybody else.

And when people doubt you and don't think you can do it,

just because they can't doesn't mean you can't.

-You have your flight log? -Yes.

[woman 5] Well, last time you taxied over here to these, you're gonna do that again?

[Afton] Eh, probably.

[blows]

[woman 5] Thanks for your help on this.

[man 14] See the color is blue, right? Real light blue.

That's what we're looking for, light blue and no water.

All right. I'm going to let you get in on the left seat just like the pilot we did before.

Okay.

[Afton] There are those. There's some more.

[man 14] I'm going to pull this all the way up.

Is that enough room for you? No, you need some more.

-All right. -[Afton] That's close enough.

You know, and we've told like, we've said this before,

and a lot of kids... People are like, "Well, why would you let her fly now?

She's too young. She can't fly.

She can't get her license until she's 16."

I said, "Yes, and no. You're right."

Um, but, Joel and I talked about it.

We said, you know, these kids that become professional baseball players,

professional, let's just say professional athletes.

They don't start playing that sport when they're 18.

They've been playing that sport since they were four, five, six years old.

So it's kind of the same thing.

She's just grooming herself for that.

And if she's 18 and chooses not to do this, that's fine, too.

Um, she could go on a whole different direction.

I would be surprised by that. But it would be fine.

I don't know. I don't know what...

I think she'll always have something to do with aviation.

Maybe she won't fly it, maybe she'll manage the aviation.

Maybe she'll do the tower. Maybe... There're so many different avenues.

It's not just flying a plane.

Uh, I don't know what it's going to be.

I have no idea but she might as well enjoy it.

She can do what she wants and be what she wants.

And if she enjoys it... I mean, don't they say like, the best thing in life

is you'll never work a day in your life if you do what you love.

I'm not sure what type of pilot I'd be when I grow up

because I like the idea of being a firefighter pilot, kind of or a stunt pilot.

Astronaut might be cool. But food, not really. [chuckles]

And I'm going to let you turn the key and help me start it.

[plane engine revving]

-All right. You ready? -Yes.

All right. Here we go. Woo-hoo.

There they are. You can wave at them.

[laughs]

[man 14] But I don't see any other airplanes on the screen

so I think we're the only ones out here right now.

[laughs]

What is that?

-All this? -Yes.

-That's just showing us the land. -Yeah.

These are the lakes right by us.

The cars look like little toys, don't they?

[laughs] Yeah. Yes, they do.

All right. You want to pretend like we're going to [inaudible], the big air show.

-Yeah. -Okay.

We got to slow down and go down lower.

Okay.

-See the road down there? -Yeah.

This is how we do it. We intercept... There's Highway 4.

-Okay. -And we just flying along four.

Okay.

[upbeat music playing]

♪ You won't ever see us Back away ♪

♪ Ti! we make the world see that We ain't come to play ♪

♪ This is so lil girls dream Bigger than they supposed to ♪

♪ And we get a fair share of pie On the plate ♪

♪ I am her, I am her ♪

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I On our style of address ♪

♪ Or style of the dress I'll rock a head wrap ♪

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I In '97, million women marched And I was with it ♪

♪ In 2017, the same The establishment livid ♪

♪ If this a man's world we came Here to grab the equivalents ♪

♪ And watch the future Reimagined ♪

♪ By the hand of the feminine ♪

I You won't ever See us back away ♪

♪ Ti! we make the world see that We ain't come to play ♪

♪ This is so lil girls dream Bigger than they supposed to ♪

♪ And we get a fair share of pie On the plate ♪

♪ I am her, I am her ♪

♪ You won't ever see us Back away ♪

♪ Ti! we make the world see that We ain't come to play ♪

♪ This is so lil girls dream Bigger than they supposed to ♪

♪ And we get a fair share of pie On the plate ♪

♪ I am her, I am her ♪

♪ I am her ♪