Weekend Pilots: Technology, Masculinity, and Private Aviation in Postwar America
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.

1121713336
Weekend Pilots: Technology, Masculinity, and Private Aviation in Postwar America
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.

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Weekend Pilots: Technology, Masculinity, and Private Aviation in Postwar America

Weekend Pilots: Technology, Masculinity, and Private Aviation in Postwar America

by Alan Meyer
Weekend Pilots: Technology, Masculinity, and Private Aviation in Postwar America

Weekend Pilots: Technology, Masculinity, and Private Aviation in Postwar America

by Alan Meyer

Hardcover

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Overview

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.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781421418582
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date: 12/30/2015
Pages: 328
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Alan Meyer teaches aviation history and the history of technology at Auburn University. He is a longtime private pilot.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

List of Abbreviations xv

Introduction 1

1 Who is "Mr. General Aviation"? The Origins and Demographics of Postwar Private Flying 19

2 Shouting, Shirttails, and Spins: Flight Instruction and the Acculturation of New Pilots 50

3 The Family Car of the Air versus the Pilot's Airplane: Technology as Gatekeeper to the Sky 89

4 The "Right Stuff" Syndrome: Risk, Skill, and Identity within the Community of Pilots 118

5 Hog Wallow Airports, Hangar Flying, and Hundred-Dollar Hamburgers: Constructing Masculine Pilot Identity on the Ground 155

6 Gendered Communities: Negotiating a Place for Women in Private Aviation 190

Conclusion 223

Notes 231

Essay on Sources 287

Index 295

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Well organized, eminently readable, and accessible, this book tells a fascinating story. I highly recommend Weekend Pilots.
—Amy E. Foster, University of Central Florida, author of Integrating Women into the Astronaut Corps: Politics and Logistics at NASA, 1972–2004

Amy E. Foster

Well organized, eminently readable, and accessible, this book tells a fascinating story. I highly recommend Weekend Pilots.

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