Cara Martinez is used to the stunned reaction from strangers who learn that she is working to earn her flight wings.
“You get the same face, when someone mentions that you’re (studying to be) a pilot, and they go, ‘Oh, really?’ ” said Martinez, an aircraft pilot training student at Texas State Technical College in Waco. Her flight instructor, Rosalyn Montgomery, said most people assume she’s a flight attendant when Montgomery mentions her aviation training.
But the surprised responses aren’t completely unwarranted. Just less than 7 percent of U.S. pilots are women, according to the most recent data collected by the nonprofit group Women in Aviation International. At TSTC, Montgomery is the only female flight instructor. And Martinez and her roommate, Alyssa Cockrell, 19, are the college’s only full-time female pilot students, while a handful of women are enrolled in the aircraft pilot training program part time.
For the complete story by Regina Dennis of the WacoTrib.com, click here.
Photo by Texas State Technical College
