About time: Military aircraft designers waking up to fact some pilots are women

Till today, aircraft systems that could make military aviation more accommodating for women and encourage more of them to stay in service are still designed around men. Photos: AFP

As a helicopter pilot in Iraq in 2004, now-Senator Tammy Duckworth stopped drinking water hours before she climbed into the cockpit of her Army UH-60 Black Hawk for combat missions.

Even in Iraq’s heat, she’d purposefully dehydrate herself because there was not a safe way for her to use the restroom in her one-piece, zip-up flight suit.