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This is just my observation from my perch in the cockpit.I think it’s probably harder in the long run.First, in the U.S. it’s probably easier to be hired once you’ve reached the minimum requirements that the airline has established. There is a long history of discrimination against women and the correction is causing the airlines to prefer women applicants.But once a woman starts training, I’ve noticed they’re held to a subtly higher standard than men. I think there is still a lot of misogyny in the pilot corps and it shows in training. Women only make up about 5% of the airline pilots and they’re different enough to get everyone’s attention. If a woman makes a mistake or is involved in an incident, their gender is often observed and sometimes discussed among the pilots. The fact that women are preferentially hired is resented by the males and so they feel entitled to observe women more closely for problems. It’s not a terrible situation for women but I’m sure they’re more on guard than men in the same position. Women copilots are scrutinized more by the captains than men in my opinion.I’ve seen line checks and sim checks where the instructors were more demanding of women than men. Not in a huge way but they are more direct and more demanding.It’s not company policy but just a subtle culture in most airlines that makes it harder for women.My experience with women captains and copilots has been universally good. I find women to be excellent pilots and have very good skills and knowledge, just like the men. I think women are every bit as capable as any man. The female copilots I’ve worked with are outstanding to a person.In the U.S. military, women are eligible for every flying position. Here’s a good picture of a group of F-15 pilots walking back to base ops.They look so casual and harmless now but I’m going to guess that they’re taken much more seriously when diplomacy fails.Story Time:I was a new 727 engineer flying from Denver to New Orleans in the 80’s. We descended into the area and began the approach. When the flying pilot (female captain) called for flaps, they became “Split”. That means the inboard and outboard flap panels were not operating in parallel and one of them was extending while the other was stuck.This picture shows the two flap panels. The inboard aileron is between them.We went into a hold. I was the engineer so by procedure, the FO flew the hold and the captain and I worked the problem. We were kind of low on fuel and the weather wasn’t good. A thunderstorm was approaching the airport and it was important to all of us to get on the ground sooner rather than later.I got out the checklist which is a doozy. You have to do all kinds of trouble shooting and then you try to drive the flaps down with the electric motors manually and then the leading edge devices become stuck down (which increases drag on the wing). Once that was done, we had to jump to other checklists for approach to landing with partial flaps and compute different approach speeds. There were a lot of “IF/THEN” statements on the checklists which sometimes lead crews astray.Anyway, we jumped into the checklist and it quickly became clear that the outboard panel wasn’t going to move hydraulically, the captain didn’t want to go any further in the checklist. The controller was getting busy as airplanes were anxiously trying to get onto the approach before the weather closed the airport. Every time we turned toward the airport in the hold, she checked the radar which showed the storm getting closer.She then told me to set the approach speed to 150 kts and we would fly the approach at that speed with the flaps fully extended on the inboard flaps and let the outboards remain in their stuck position.I was upset with her because I thought we should do the checklist by procedure or divert now. I was judging her for the decision and I thought she was taking a cavalier attitude toward the safety of the aircraft and not following the procedures I’d learned in training. I thought she should have at least had me set an approach speed for our weight and flap configuration from the book. We were deeply into the approach procedure as I continued to second guess her. I was in my first year as an airline engineer and I was focused on my job of being the guy who was worried about the mechanics of the airplane.So we fly the approach and land with no problems.That night, I read the checklists carefully and found that at the very end, if the flaps wouldn’t move, the checklist called for a 150kt approach. My 26 year old mind reeled.She had done the exactly right thing in the circumstances. She was up against bad weather, low fuel and an inexperienced engineer. Completing the checklist would have taken time. The time it would have taken me to slog through a long checklist would burn fuel and reduce her options. The thunderstorm was approaching, there could have been a wind shift or gusts that caused the airport to change runways which takes even more time. She didn’t have that luxury because an old 727 burns a lot of fuel at low altitude. She needed to make a decision quickly in light of the threats.She minimized the risks by knowing the system, knowing the checklist and using that knowledge to make the best and safest decision. She didn’t complete the abnormal checklist but she knew enough about it to know that if the flap panel didn’t move, to make a 150kt approach. She also knew that if the panel moved, she would be able to fly a slower approach but she would have stuck flaps for a possible diversion and with the flap panel stuck, may have had too much additional drag to fly to the diversion airport with the available fuel.Now that I’m in the captains seat myself, I would have done precisely the same thing (If I am a sharp as she is).The next morning, I talked about it with her on the crew van from the hotel. She said she knew I wasn’t happy with her decision but that she didn’t have the time to explain what she was thinking in the low fuel/approaching storms scenario. She told me about some experiences she’d had earlier in her career that molded her decision and was very candid with me about decision making and the gray areas that develop in the heat of battle.She remains among the best captains I’ve flown with. I respect her.

This is just my observation from my perch in the cockpit.I think the biggest challenge for a female airline pilots are male airline pilots.First, in the U.S. it’s probably easier to be hired once you’ve reached the minimum requirements that the airline has established. There is a long history of discrimination against women and the correction is causing the airlines to prefer women applicants.But once a woman starts training, I’ve noticed they’re held to a subtly higher standard than men. I think there is still a lot of misogyny in the pilot corps and it shows in training. Women only make up about 5% of the airline pilots and they’re different enough to get everyone’s attention. If a woman makes a mistake or is involved in an incident, their gender is often observed and sometimes discussed among the pilots. The fact that women are preferentially hired is resented by the males and so they feel entitled to observe women more closely for problems. It’s not a terrible situation for women but I’m sure they’re more on guard than men in the same position. Women copilots are scrutinized more by the captains than men in my opinion.I’ve seen line checks and sim checks where the instructors were more demanding of women than men. Not in a huge way but they are more direct and more demanding.It’s not company policy but just a subtle culture in most airlines that makes it harder for women.My experience with women captains and copilots has been universally good. I find women to be excellent airmen and have very good skills and knowledge, just like the men. I think women are every bit as capable as any man. The female copilots I’ve worked with are outstanding to a person.In the U.S. military, women are eligible for every flying position. Here’s a good picture of a group of F-15 pilots walking back to base ops.Story Time:I was a new 727 engineer flying from Denver to New Orleans in the 80’s. We descended into the area and began the approach. When the flying pilot (female captain) called for flaps, they became “Split”. That means the inboard and outboard flap panels were not operating in parallel and one of them was extending while the other was stuck.This picture shows the two flap panels. The inboard aileron is between them.We went into a hold. I was the engineer so by procedure, the FO flew the hold and the captain and I worked the problem. We were kind of low on fuel and the weather wasn’t good. A thunderstorm was approaching the airport and it was important to all of us to get on the ground sooner rather than later.I got out the checklist which is a doozy. You have to do all kinds of trouble shooting and then you try to drive the flaps down with the electric motors manually and then the leading edge devices become stuck down (which limits your ability to divert). Once that was done, we had to jump to other checklists for approach to landing with partial flaps and compute different approach speeds. There were a lot of “IF/THEN” statements on the checklists which sometimes lead crews astray.Anyway, we jumped into the checklist and it quickly became clear that the outboard panel wasn’t going to move hydraulically, the captain didn’t want to go any further in the checklist. The controller was getting busy as airplanes were anxiously trying to get onto the approach before the weather closed the airport. We turned toward the airport and the radar showed a big red blob moving closer.She then told me to set the approach speed to 150 kts and we would fly the approach at that speed with the flaps fully extended on the inboard flaps and let the outboards remain in their stuck position.I was upset with her because I thought we should do the checklist by procedure or divert now. I was judging her for the decision and I thought she was taking a cavalier attitude toward the safety of the aircraft. I thought she should have at least had me set an approach speed for our weight and flap configuration from the book. We were deeply into the approach procedure as I continued to second guess her. I really wasn’t thinking that we would arrive at our divert airport on fumes but I was in my first year as an airline engineer and I was focused on my job of being the guy who was worried about the airplane.So we fly the approach and land with no problems.That night, I read the checklists carefully and found that at the very end, if the flaps wouldn’t move, the checklist called for a 150kt approach.She had done the exactly right thing in the circumstances. She was up against bad weather, low fuel, a broken airplane and an inexperienced engineer. She minimized the risks by knowing the system, knowing the checklist and using that knowledge to make the best and safest decision. She didn’t complete the abnormal checklist but she knew enough about it to know that if the flap panel didn’t move, to make a 150kt approach. She also knew that if the panel moved, she would be able to fly a slower approach but she would have stuck flaps for a possible diversion for weather and with the flap panel stuck, may have had too much additional drag to fly to the diversion airport with the available fuel.Now that I’m in the captains seat myself, I would have done precisely the same thing (If I am a sharp as she is).The next morning, I talked about it with her on the crew van from the hotel. She said she knew I wasn’t happy with her decision but that she didn’t have the time to explain what she was thinking in the low fuel/approaching storms scenario. She told me about some experiences she’d had earlier in her career that molded her decision and was very candid with me about decision making and the gray areas that develop in the heat of battle. I learned a lot about flying and management of risk that day.She remains among the best captains I’ve flown with. I respect her.

I once worked on developing the software to drive a system that performed sequences of industrial chemical processes. The thick programming manual was full of warnings about how you must “never send the following byte sequence” to the machine, or horrible toxic chemicals would be released, and would damage people and property. Warning after warning after even-more-dire warning. And they weren’t just hyperbole. They were real concerns. To better understand what I was working with, I did the research on the chemicals involved, and on the way the machine operated. Those warnings really needed to be there.In addition to the software to drive the functions of the machine, and its communication protocols with other systems in the facility, I ended up developing a “safety layer” that would prevent those byte sequences from ever reaching the machine, just in case a bug was ever introduced into the upper application layer of the code. I also put in several runtime checks to make sure the safety layer was in place and working before anything was sent to the machine. I wanted to make sure that anyone who worked on that software, then or in the future, would have that layer in place by default, so that nothing horrible would happen. I carefully documented the software (both in the design documentation and in the source code itself), making it crystal clear what was at stake.This proprietary code was kept under tight security, and once it was up and running, all further changes to the code had to be carefully reviewed before being checked in, including going through a checklist of items relating to the safety layer remaining in place and operational. After all, the health/lives of employees and the property of the company could be at risk without this layer.Do I think there exists code that is too dangerous to be open sourced? Yes. Yes I do. This is just one example.[Granted, the system should have had its own internal safety layer in place to prevent the disasters warned about in the manual. But alas, it did not, so I put the safety layer in the software that drove the system. And granted, one could argue that to actually be “dangerous,” the user of the software would need to have the expensive system it is designed to control.]