Patty Wagstaff is a competition aerobatic pilot, U.S. National Aerobatic Champion, and 6-time consecutive \u201cFirst Lady of Aerobatics\u201d. Today, she owns and operates an aerobatic and upset recovery training (UPRT) flight school in St. Augustine, Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wagstaff grew up in Japan, the daughter of a Japan Air Lines pilot, and didn\u2019t consider a flying career until her late twenties. When she expressed interest in pursuing a flying career, she met the then-typical response that women couldn\u2019t become airline pilots. But that didn\u2019t stop her. She pursued her flying career in Alaska using a public, low-interest, student loan program to pay for training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After attending an airshow and watching an aerobatic competition, she flew in a Decathlon and explored things upside down, leading to a lifelong love of aerobatic flying. \u201cI was really looking for something to excel at,\u201d says Wagstaff. \u201cIt just happened to take this form.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were few women flying aerobatics at the time. \u201cAt first\u201d, she says, \u201cpeople thought \u2018Oh, isn\u2019t that cute?\u2019\u201d But despite such comments, many in the aerobatic community were welcoming and enthusiastic, if a bit confused. \u201cLater, they told me\u201d, says Wagstaff: \u201c\u2018We didn\u2019t know what to do\u2026you were sort of like our little sister\u2026then all of a sudden you\u2019re kicking our butts!\u2019\u201d Gradually, the community saw her more and more as just a fellow competitor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently, Wagstaff was thumbing through the top aviation magazines and noticed something interesting: the vast majority of articles and ads featured white men on the cover. Only three percent of the material featured women or people of color, substantially far less than the rate in the U.S. pilot population. To Wagstaff, it\u2019s an interesting way in which one part of our culture is lagging another: women and minorities are learning to fly. But they are still far from the \u201ctypical\u201d pilot in the cultural mindset at large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wagstaff is quick to recognize that everyone is susceptible to bias in one degree or another. Laughing, she recalls an event several years ago, when she watched friend and mentee Shasta Weiss depart on her round-the-world trip in an A-36 Bonanza. \u201cAll of a sudden, I\u2019m a little nervous [for her],\u201d says Wagstaff. After expressing this, another pilot wittily pointed out that a few years earlier when a male pilot, with less flight time than Weiss, departed on a similar round-the-world flight, none of them were nervous for him. \u201cWe\u2019re all a little bit guilty\u201d says Wagstaff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For young women and men embarking on careers, Wagstaff advises they \u201cFind allies and mentors\u2026Find somebody that is on your side that will speak up for you. When you\u2019re the only different person in the room and you\u2019re just starting out and you\u2019re young, it\u2019s hard to speak up.\u201d And, she adds, a more established mentor may have more influence in the community than you, and they can use that to help you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For her part, Wagstaff is enthusiastically leading the way through her Florida-based aerobatic and UPRT training school, where she routinely teaches students of diverse backgrounds, united by their passion for aerobatics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Patty Wagstaff is a competition aerobatic pilot, U.S. National Aerobatic Champion, and 6-time consecutive \u201cFirst Lady of Aerobatics\u201d. Today, she owns and operates an aerobatic and upset recovery training (UPRT) flight school in St. Augustine, Florida. Wagstaff grew up in Japan, the daughter of a Japan Air Lines pilot, and didn\u2019t consider a flying career…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,16,41],"tags":[46,47],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/patty_wagstaff.png",1113,742,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/patty_wagstaff-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/patty_wagstaff-300x200.png",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/patty_wagstaff-768x512.png",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/patty_wagstaff-1024x683.png",1024,683,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/patty_wagstaff.png",1113,742,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/patty_wagstaff.png",1113,742,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Jake Roach","author_link":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/author\/jake\/"},"uagb_comment_info":54,"uagb_excerpt":"Patty Wagstaff is a competition aerobatic pilot, U.S. National Aerobatic Champion, and 6-time consecutive \u201cFirst Lady of Aerobatics\u201d. Today, she owns and operates an aerobatic and upset recovery training (UPRT) flight school in St. Augustine, Florida. Wagstaff grew up in Japan, the daughter of a Japan Air Lines pilot, and didn\u2019t consider a flying career...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":480,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions\/480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyfortheculture.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}