Flight International - 04

Women in aviation
McLean views climate change as an
engineering challenge to be mastered
Danielle McLean
have the resources and staff to develop, fund and test
these kinds of new technologies, were reluctant to engage.
The risk for them, she says, may just be too high.
“It’s really hard for a legacy company that’s so big,
like Boeing, to pivot from what makes them Boeing.
They have so much inertia towards what they’re doing
well – which is dominating the aviation industry with
their aircraft – that it is hard to make the business case
for them to invest in hydrogen or electric or whatever.
It would be disrupting their own business.” So, she
adds, it is up to small, scrappy, agile players to push
the envelope on this technology.
She cites one more reason why she chose to spearhead
innovation in an exciting new part of the industry.
“At university, I was always the only girl in my
labs. For a long time, I always felt like I was playing
catch-up. The boys had this foundational knowledge
and language that I just didn’t have. I only knew the
technical terms for things, and not the slang. It was
scary and super-uncomfortable. When I was a kid,
I wasn’t allowed to play with my dad’s tools, in the
garage, even though I wanted to. I was raised with
dolls and kitchen sets, and my brothers were raised
with tools and guns and army guys.
Information sharing
“But the eVTOL space was all new to all of us. It
was a level playing field. We were all asking the
same questions, and we all were sharing the same
information. So that’s another beautiful thing that’s
happening right now.
“I was in my element. Finally,” McLean says.
The lesson she learned? Always look forward.
“I’m not focusing my energy on trying to change
the old any more, let’s just build the new.
“Let’s just do it ourselves.” ◗
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April 2023 Flight International 83