Aircrew Life Support Equipment Experiences in Canadian Military Operational Women Pilots
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Women continue to remain a minority among Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) operational pilots, equaling <2% in 2000 and <6% in 2022. Limited sex- and gender-specific research on aeromedical support needs has been completed on this population. This initial manuscript examines aircrew life support equipment (ALSE) and musculoskeletal issues within a larger data set. METHODS: This hypothesis-generating, mixed-methods, epidemiological study used a community-based participatory research approach, involving semi-structured interviews with women who were current CAF members and had ever served as operational pilots. Interviews included aviation occupational interest and medical questionnaires, as well as medical record reviews, which were analyzed descriptively and thematically. RESULTS: Demographics included 51 of 88 (58%) of CAF operational women pilots from 15 different platforms, with a mean service time of 20 yr (range from 8-41 yr) and mean total flying hour estimation of 2400 h (range of 500-8500 h). At least one piece of ALSE did not fit properly in 82% of subjects, and 52% of this group reported prolonged health impacts. Almost all subjects had musculoskeletal issues, with 35% resulting in a flying impairment. DISCUSSION: This snapshot looks at sex- and gender-specific aeromedical experiences of operationally trained CAF women pilots, which can be used to guide research, policy, training, and education to improve their aeromedical experiences specifically with ALSE. Sex- and gender-based analysis and optimization could help improve equipment procurement and prevent unnecessary injury and illness in female pilots due to their ALSE. Thorgrimson J, Breeck K. Aircrew life support equipment experiences in Canadian military operational women pilots. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2025; 96(2):116-120.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".