A Chick in the Cockpit: My Life Up in the Air - Softcover

Armstrong, Erika

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1933016140 ISBN 13: 9781933016146

Publisher: Behler Publications, 2015

Synopsis

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard your flight. As you step onto my aircraft, take a quick glance into the cockpit. Yep, that’s me sitting in the captains’ seat, and that’s my first officer laughing about how he accidentally locked himself out of his hotel room. Naked. Again.

We’re both a little ripe from flying for the last five days, but we’re still smiling because we have spent years and thousands of hours training and living an uncommon lifestyle to be up here for you.

For the next few hours, you have to turn your life over to us. It’s hard to trust others, and there are moments when you don’t have a choice about being in control. During those moments, you’ll just have to tighten your seatbelt and trust that others will get you through the storm.

Our route today will take you through a segment of my life up in the air, and you will see things you could never imagine. Since I have been locked in the cockpit with men for several thousands of hours over the years, I have been given a perspective few get to experience. To help you see a different perspective, too, I am giving you a checklist to use as we move along our route. It will take you from gate to gate, and when we’re done, we will have both learned a little more about what it takes to fly.

Now just sit back and relax. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

Erika Armstrong has worked every aspect of aviation in her twenty-five years in the industry, including an international corporate airline captain. She is an award-winning staff writer for Colorado Serenity Magazine and is a professional pilot columnist for Disciples of Flight, NYC Aviation, Contrails, Flying, LinkedIn, and Business Insider and is the owner of Leading Edge Aviation Consulting.

About this title

From the Author:

1. Could this story have happened fifty years ago? What is your view on feminism and how has it changed through each of your own life phases?
 
2. Is the title, A Chick in the Cockpit, sexist or offensive to you? Why? Can you separate your own beliefs from what society has taught you?
 
3. There are certain industries that simply cannot be conducive to raising children/having family life. What other careers take parents away from home and what solutions are there to an absent parent?
 
4. Are you afraid to fly? Why or why not? What is your worst/best aviation experience?
 
5. Have you ever wanted to be a pilot? If you didn't follow through, what held you back?
 
6. Have your views or thoughts on aviation changed after reading this story?
 
7. Do you use checklists at work, at home, anywhere in your life?
 
8. Have you ever experienced sexual harassment or discrimination? How is it different from the last generation?
 
9. Erika uses an example of swearing in the cockpit to "talk like a man." Do women swear more now to fit into the man's world? Are we desensitized to it?
 
10. Erika loses one of her mentors and several friends in aviation accidents, but because of her mentor, she continues training. Have you ever had a mentor? How have mentors changed your life and why aren't there more?
 
11. Have women changed to blend into corporate America or has corporate America changed to allow women in? Do women lead or still just strive to blend in?
 
12. In A Chick in the Cockpit, Erika mentions being adopted and her belief that core character is set at birth. How does your character affect life choices and do you believe it is set at birth?How do life choices affect character and vice versa?
 
13. Like most of us, Erika had to spend some time working terrible jobs. What's the worst job you've had and what did you learn from it?
 
14. Erika never considers that her new female boss would ban her from the cockpit for being a woman. Have you ever been discriminated against based on gender by someone of the same gender?
 
15. How well do you think you know the opposite sex, and how did you gather that knowledge?
 
16. How have the roles of men and women changed during the last fifty years and is it anatural change or does it feel forced?  Who or what is forcing it?
 
17. Why is there more divorce in our society now than the last generation? Are couples/families more or less "happy" that the last generation? What do you attribute that to?
 
18. Did Erika fit your image of an abused woman? Have you or someone you know been involved in a domestic abuse situation? Give examples of abuse, besides obvious physical damage. What would you have done differently to get out?
 
19. Faced with the probability of divorce while approaching the end of her child bearing years, Erika conceived a child on purpose. Do you agree or disagree with this choice?
 
20. Do you know your local laws on domestic abuse and what actions warrant arrest?
 
21. What can we do, as a culture, to strengthen marriage and curb abuse?
 
22. What past influences are shaping Erika's actions in the story?
 
23. What gives you serenity and can you find it even though you are alone? Are you only happy when in a relationship? What does our society teach us about happiness?
 
24. Now that an entire generation has lived through the post Gloria Steinem era, are webetter or worse off now as an individual, a family, a child, an employee, anation. How much of that status is based on the changing roles of women? Howcan we do better?
 
25. If you are in a book club, why? Would you have been willing to help Erika like the Book Club Warriors were willing to help her?
 
26. Has our society created a collaborative environment for women to work together, orcompete against each other, and how does that affect our society as a whole?
 
27. Were there any moments where you agreed or disagreed with Erika's choices? What would you have done differently?
 
28. What would you do for your children?
 
29. Did your opinion of the book change as you read it? How did you experience the book?

About the Author:

From the front desk of a busy FBO, to the captain's seat of a commercial airliner, Erika has experienced everything aviation has to offer. She has worked on both sides of the cockpit door (Part 91, 135 and 121) and is one of the first modern woman airline captains to write a creative nonfiction book about the aviation industry which highlights the humor and heartbreaking challenges women in our society quietly face. Her book is not what you think it's going to be about...

Erika has an extensive social media network (400,000 passionate, aviation-geek cult followers at the moment) and is a Professor of Aviation at MSU Denver, Director of Instructional Design at Advanced Aircrew Academy, and award-winning staff writer for Colorado Serenity magazine. 

She is the author of A Chick in the Cockpit and The Art of Being a Pilot (coming out 2019) and has over eighty published articles. She is a contributing editor and professional pilot columnist at Plane & Pilot, Disciples of Flight, NYC Aviation, Flying.com, Serenity, Mountain Connection, Contrails, General Aviation News, LinkedIn Influencer, and Business Insider.
Most uniquely, Erika was an international corporate, airline, Red Cross and 24-hour air ambulance pilot/captain. She holds type ratings for the Boeing 727 and Citation 500 series aircraft and has extensive training from FSI, CAE, NATCO and Pan Am. DA-20, King Air 90, 100, 200 and 1 hour in a Russian Yak...

About this edition

• Publisher: Behler Publications
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1933016140
• ISBN 13: 9781933016146
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 274