Talk:Bonnie Tiburzi

Potential references

• Briggs, Carole S. At the Controls: Women in Aviation. Minneapolis, Minn.: Lerner, 1991.
• Chadwick, Bruce. "Women in Aviation." Cosmopolitan, November 1985.
• Holden, Henry M. Ladybirds.
• Harper's Bazaar Article, January 1973
• Tiburzi, Bonnie (1948–) Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages January 1, 2007

Minor mentions

• THE EVENING HOURS by Enid Nemy New York Times January 20, 1984 (story about telling the chief pilot of AA that she wouldn't be flying for awhile since she was pregnant)
• Persistence helped pilot get career off the ground By Lizabeth Gray Pittsburgh Post Gazette 1999-03-17
• Reaching for the Skies. Bonnie Tiburzi Caputo, the first female pilot for a major U.S. airline, reflects on her career Interview by Eric Butterman | Photograph by Adam Olszewski Texas Journey September/October 2010

Firsts

This article says that Tiburzi became the first female pilot for a major American commercial airline when she joined American Airlines in 1973. The New York Times said (at http://www.nytimes.com/1973/06/10/archives/fly-me-means-fly-me-women-pilots-trends.html ) that this happened in June of that year.

On the other hand, the Emily Howell Warner article says she served for the first time as second officer on a Frontier Airlines Boeing 737 on February 6, 1973. Another page ( http://www.dot.state.mn.us/aero/aviationeducation/museum/aviation_firsts/colorado.html ) said she was hired as a pilot and flew as a pilot on that first flight. All sources that address the point seem to agree she didn't take the controls until she was promoted to first officer six months later.

Also worth noting, in those days, some airlines flew three cockpit crewmembers on 737s even though Boeing had the airplane certificated for a two-person flight crew.

I can't find anything either way about whether Frontier required second officers on its 737s in 1973 to be qualified pilots. Warner certainly was; from her article, 3,500 flight hours as a pilot and 7,000 hours as a flight instructor when Frontier hired her, but I've found nothing on when she became type-certified for the 737. And what matters more is whether she was hired to BE a pilot, qualified to take the controls if needed.

So the terminology kind of matters here. It may be that Warner was actually the first female pilot for a major American commercial airline when Frontier hired her in January of 1973, or in February when she flew as a flight-crew member, in spite of the fact that she didn't take the controls until months later. Or the Tiburzi article may be right that Tiburzi flew a plane for American before Warner flew one for Frontier.

But so far there doesn't seem to be enough information from reliable sources in both articles plus the links I've given here to decide exactly what should be said about both women.

Any further input would be welcomed. (Also cross-posted to the Warner article's talk page.) 98.247.224.9 (talk) 07:00, 16 December 2017 (UTC)