Plans Finalized for WAI Girls in Aviation Day – All Systems Go for Saturday!

Corporate WAI members join chapters to sponsor events

Women in Aviation International’s network of more than 110 chapters will be joined on Saturday, September 23, 2017, by some WAI corporate members to produce Girls in Aviation Day events. Celebrated worldwide, Girls in Aviation Day is designed to introduce and educate girls up to 17 years of age on the many career choices and lifestyle possibilities offered by the aviation/aerospace industry.

“Girls in Aviation Day has been embraced by the entire aviation community including pilots, airlines, aviation museums, FBOs, flight schools, colleges and universities, government officials and aviation businesses,” says WAI President Dr. Peggy Chabrian. “This community effort speaks highly to the commitment we all feel to share our passion for aviation and create a diverse future aviation workforce.”

WAI chapters have planned events based on their own local resources and creativity. A typical Girls in Aviation Day event is held in an aviation environment and includes meeting role models, hands-on activities, airport tours, airplane familiarization as well as fun activities to engage the girls in aviation.

For the third year, Delta Air Lines will celebrate Girls in Aviation Day by showing girls that opportunities are endless on the ground and at 30,000 feet. More than 120 girls, ages 12-18, representing local community groups and flight schools will explore a possible career in aviation by participating in Delta’s Women Inspiring our Next Generation (WING) flight. Every aspect of this annual charter is anything but ordinary – it’s a celebration of possibility and completely orchestrated by women for women.

This year’s participants will meet current employees in aviation and explore the National Flight Academy in Pensacola, Florida, all while networking and meeting some of aviation’s finest who pioneered their own path right through the glass ceiling, like Joy Walker, Delta’s first female pilot.

At the National Flight Academy, the event will be held onboard AMBITION (CVT-11), a landlocked, virtual aircraft carrier. Girls will rotate through four different educational spaces in the National Flight Academy and learn about forces of flight, navigate through a drone obstacle course and learn to track a drone, giving them a sense of what it’s like in an Air Traffic Control tower. Lastly, they will fly simulators in pilot and copilot teams. The event will conclude in National Naval Aviation Museum’s Blue Angels Atrium with guest speaker Capt. Corrie Mays, USMC F/A-18 Officer, former Blue Angel.

“We have no doubt that lives will be changed on Saturday,” adds Dr. Chabrian. “Girls worldwide are in for an experience that just may steer the course of their lives toward aviation – all done in a supportive, exciting and fun-filled environment.”

More information on Girls in Aviation Day, September 23, 2017, including information about other local chapter and corporate member events, can be found at www.wai.org/giad.