Origins - Development - Background - Aircraft
Ballet - Quest - Gender - Snap - Weather

by Larry Lowe

One odd aspect of the World Aerobatic Championships is the fact that while men and women compete as equals, with the Aresti Cup awarded to the highest placing pilot overall, there are separate sets of flight medals and team trophies for men and women. While U.S. woman aerobatic pilots differ as to the present need for the separate distinction, they agree that in the past, there's been good reason for it.

When Mary Gaffaney, the ground-breaker for U.S. women in competition--now 70 and still flight instructing in Florida--was the sole woman on the United States team in 1968 and one of only two in 1972, she believes she detected a subtle discrimination in scoring. In 1972,"just before the last sequence, I was very high [in the standings]--I don't know, second or third or fourth--and one of the judges came to me and he said, 'We've never had anything like this, a woman up in this position.' I said, 'Oh, you'll think of something,' and on the next sequence I zipped down [in standing]." Gaffaney went on to become the first American to win the title of Women's World Champion that year, placing fifth overall and winning the women's gold medal on the Freestyle and the Known. She feels that a separate set of awards helps level the scoring field for women.

Betty Stewart was the first person and only woman to win the gender title of World's Champion twice, with wins in 1980 and '82. She was also the first woman who publicly stated the goal to win overall outright. "Oh, yes," she recalls. "It was also my ambition to be American National Champion, but due to politics at the time, I knew that was never going to happen either." Yet she feels the gender distinction is no longer needed. "I'm not sure if it really ever was," she says. "I think it got derived from all the other Olympic sports at one time where there were separate categories for men and women due to physical limitations. I don't think there is a physical limitation to aerobatics."

Linda Meyers Morrissey is the most experienced pilot on the current U.S. team, having been a member since 1982. The only woman to win an invitational masters championship, she was a part of the team that won the 1988 women's team gold medal and placed second in the women's in 1990, one of four current team members who has done so. "As soon as everybody's minds are adjusted to the fact that we're all equal, we will not need a women's division," she says. "But at this point, I don't believe everyone in the world thinks that men and women are equal [in aerobatics]."

Patty Wagstaff flew through the glass ceiling in U.S. aerobatics in 1991 by seizing the overall spot at the U.S. Nationals. "I saw Sean Tucker at an airshow right after that, and he said: 'You know, ya gotta win it again.' And I said: 'Well, really?' and he said, "They're gonna say it was a fluke if you don't. I know how these guys think.'" So Wagstaff went out and racked up two more consecutive national championship titles.

Wagstaff is steadfast in her opinion that there's no gender distinction to be made. "My goal's always been to be the best--not the women's best, not the women's anything," she says. Yet she is aware that in aerobatics, that stance is a distinctively American luxury. Mike Heuer, current president of the international organization that oversees the sport, agrees that the gender distinction is outmoded, but he notes that "we have a very strong feminist movement here, and those movements don't always exist in those countries that compete with us."

Yet he believes discrimination in judging is a thing of the past. "It's not going to be long--and maybe even this year--where we have an overall world champion that is a woman," he says. "It's in the cards. There are so many out there that are training so hard and they're such good pilots that it's just a matter of time."

Betty Stewart agrees that, at least in the United States, judging prejudice is easing. She feels that Wagstaff's victories are due in part to that shift in attitude. But she is still doubtful about the chances of the Aresti Cup going to a woman. "To be quite honest, I don't think it is possible," she says. "But if they did do it, it would probably wake up a bunch of the guys. Big time."

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