Berlin. For a long time, the rule in US aviation was that there must be one man in the cockpit – no flights with only female pilots. Then Lynn Rippelmeyer entered the picture.
It’s hard to say what this story is really about. In Dream of Flying. About the irrepressible desire to surpass limits. A highly risky way to combine career and family. Of male chauvinism. And about a flight that was supposed to remain secret for a long time. By Lynn Rippelmeyer. Captain Lynn Rippelmeyer.
She flew the Houston-Tegucigalpa route for nearly twelve years. This is in Honduras, and landing at the airport is considered challenging: short runway, high altitude, mountains around, purely visual landing. The chief pilot called Captain Rippelmeyer at the. Why on earth would she willingly fly to such a dangerous airport? “I told him this fits into my kids’ schedule.” Take the kids to school, check in at nine o’clock, fly to Hoduras, fly back, pick up the kids from school.
Two women in the cabin – impossible
She became famous as the first female pilot Boeing 747. Rippelmeyer even wrote a book about it, the title is basically the quintessence of his professional life: Life Gives You Wings. Today there are many female pilots, and women are a given in the cockpit. But to do that, women like Lynn Rippelmeyer have had to keep pushing boundaries.
Pioneering act: First female captain in Boeing’s premier class, a 747.
©Getty Images | P. Shirley
For her dream job Rippelmeyer slowly approached. First she was a flight attendant, that was in 1972. After a few years she took courage and got her pilot’s license. That was in 1975, when she learned that the first two female airline pilots were on the plane. USA had been defined.
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His first job was at a small airline, Air Illinois. They already had a female pilot in their ranks and an iron rule: there were no two women in the cockpit. One day she asked the owner why, she told CNN. “‘Well, we I need a man up there‘Just in case something goes wrong, right?’ And we don’t want to scare our passengers, right?”
Flight must remain secret
It happened the way it had to happen. It was December 30, 1977. That day, a first officer was absent, a captain was there – and pilot Lynn Rippelmeyer. The two women were only allowed in under three conditions Flying together: You must not make any announcements, keep the cabin door closed and never talk about it. After nearly 50 years, Rippelmeyer has violated CNN’s last commandment.
Every woman who wants to become an airline pilot has had a chance, she says. “I see without discrimination more of women.” But it was a long journey to get there.
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