Estimated reading time 7 minutes, 26 seconds.
Connie Tobias is a skilled pilot with more than 22,000 flight hours in 70 different aircraft types. If that isn’t enough to set her apart, she’s known for making history. She has appeared in and inspired various documentaries and books, received merits and awards, and continues to inspire future aviators through speaking engagements.
Tobias has been at the controls of jet airliners and fighter aircraft, turboprops, helicopters, floatplanes, and gliders. After a career that spanned over four decades, she retired from American Airlines in 2015.
She credits a Walt Kelly quote that hangs over her desk as her motivation to this day. It reads: “We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.”
In the early ‘80s, she was hired as a first officer at Wright Air Lines (formerly AeroMech). Two years later, she moved over to Piedmont Airlines (which later became American Airlines). In 1986, she graduated as captain. In the following years, she was type-rated on seven airliners, flying everything from the Boeing 727-200 to the Airbus 330-300 — accumulating more than 1,300 Trans-Atlantic crossings.
Among the first female pilots hired at a major airline, she recalled being spat on in a hotel lobby. A stranger asked, “Are you one of those women airline pilots?” and spit on the wings on her uniform. “I will not cry,” she thought to herself. She went to her room, laid out her jacket, and cleaned it off.
Despite the “ugliness” she faced initially, Tobias is “grateful for such extraordinary opportunities,” she said. “Life is now and has been very good.”
It was a cycling trip across America in 1975 that inspired her dream of flight. She recalled the moment she stopped for a drink of water, and a passing airliner caught her eye. She sold most of her belongings to finance her bachelor’s degree in aviation at Ohio University. In two years, Tobias earned a four-year degree and the Outstanding Aviation Student of the Year award.
“When I first started, I didn’t tell anybody I wanted to be an airline pilot because women didn’t do that back in those days,” she admitted.
Her professor at Ohio University became one of her first mentors. Joan Mace had been flying since 1943 and introduced Tobias to the Ninety-Nines, a group of female aviators who helped her see that anything was possible.
“[Mace] was one of the few people that knew I wanted to be an airline pilot,” said Tobias. “[You get to a] point in your career when things get tough, and you remember that somebody believed in you.”
In 2001, she flew the 1909 Blériot as a re-enactment of the historical flight of Harriet Quimby. She later championed Quimby’s enshrinement into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2004, and created a scholarship for young female aviators: The Harriet Quimby Scholarship Fund.
That same year, she made history by flying a 1903 Wright Flyer replica, “equaling the Wright Brothers first flight.”
In 2003, during the Iraq War, Tobias volunteered as a civilian pilot (Civil Reserve Air Fleet), escorting troops to the Middle East via an Airbus 330-300. She also completed a National Test Pilot School fixed-wing short course in 2008.
Looking back, the highlights for her were the places she went, the comradeship she felt, and the beauty she witnessed.
“I saw the death of a star, a supernova, with my naked eye over the north Atlantic,” she recalled. “We were the only scheduled airplane out there. It was just gorgeous.”
She admits that her head and heart will always be in the sky.
“Until you try and spread your wings, you will not know how far you will fly or how successful you will be. Flying airplanes and being in aviation have been so much fun. Because of it, I have gotten to see and do so many things, make new friends, and travel the world,” she told Skies.
“The hard work and studying it took to become a pilot did not feel so much like work because I loved flying so much.”
And for those who find themselves entering aviation during this uncertain time, Tobias offered this advice: “Stay focused on your goal, and if flying is your passion, the sky will become your home.”
