ABSTRACT
According to international studies (Mitchell et al., 2005), female pilots represent less than five per cent of the pilot population worldwide. Female pilots are also underrepresented or lacking in the samples of pilots who participate in the evaluation of aviation equipment or flight training programmes. Thus, human–machine interfaces of aircraft or aircraft cockpits, which essentially influence pilot performance (Trollip and Jensen, 1991), were designed and tested merely with male pilots. Previous research has documented gender differences in using aircraft (Baker et al., 2001) and computers (Beckwith et al., 2005; Grigoreanu et al., 2008, 2009), showing that each gender has its own benefits and limitations in terms of using new technologies.
