Erika Armstrong & Lola Reid Allin Live at Tattered Cover Aspen Grove

Join us for a conversation with local author Erika Armstrong and Canadian guest Lola Reid Allin about their memoirs, both centered on the challenges and adventures of their aviation careers, but also offering roadmaps for victims of domestic violence and abuse to find their way to safety and happiness.  

Registration includes the following options:

• A signed copy of A Chick in the Cockpit… OR
• A signed copy of Highway to the Sky … OR

• A 5$ Gift Card to Tattered Cover Book Store

We will have additional books for guests to purchase in store!

If you are unable to attend the event after purchasing a ticket, you are required to pick up your copy of the book (with proof of purchase from your event registration) within 7 days after the event date. If the book is not picked up by that date, you relinquish your copy to Tattered Cover Book Store.

ABOUT THE BOOKS

A Chick in the Cockpit: My Life Up in the Air 

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard your flight. As you step onto my aircraft, take a quick glance into the cockpit. Yep, that’s me sitting in the captains’ seat, and that’s my first officer laughing about how he accidentally locked himself out of his hotel room. Naked. Again. 

A BOOK CLUB FAVORITE! 

In the high stakes, ego-driven world of aviation, this is an extraordinary bestselling true story of how a level-headed, self-deprecating woman with an aviation addiction finds herself in J*il, her baby ripped from her arms, her piloting career taken away, and every feasible exit leads to a very dark place. This story is not what you think it will be about... 

Now just sit back and relax. It’s going to be a bumpy ride. 

Highway to the Sky: An Aviator’s Journey 

With females making up just 5% of the world’s pilots, this memoir crosses genres to combine aviation history, the author’s journey from unwanted child to successful pilot, and the feminist experience, and will appeal to multiple aviation communities. 
 
“Don’t be silly! Girls can’t fly,” seven-year-old Lola’s father admonishes her as they fly across Canada on a commercial flight in 1962. She is crushed—but decides he must be right. She’s only ever seen male pilots, after all. 
 
Highway to the Sky begins during the empty zone of women in aviation, a three-decade drought following WWII when men reclaimed the jobs that had been performed by women during the war and forced women back to diapers and dishes, where they “belonged.” 
 
Despite Lola’s childhood desire to avoid the straitjacket of traditional female roles and become a pilot, her desperate need for unconditional affection after a lonesome childhood sways her determination. At age twenty, she leaps into marriage and motherhood. Four years, one toxic relationship, and one private pilot license later, she leaves her husband, even though she knows she’ll be censured by friends, family, and 1970s society at large. 
 
Lola’s head-on battle with tradition continues as the lone female pilot in her advanced flight training program and on the job as a flight instructor, bush pilot, charter pilot, and commuter airline pilot between 1979 and 1993. Flying is challenging at times, yes—but her true obstacles are the hostility, sabotage, and discrimination she faces in her industry. She perseveres, however. Ultimately, flying is what gives her the courage to regain control of her life—and helps her find personal happiness. 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
From the front desk of a small FBO, to the captain's seat of a commercial airliner, Erika Armstrong has experienced everything in between. During her aviation career, she has been a Red Cross, air ambulance, hazmat, cargo, parts runner, and international charter, corporate and airline pilot. After all those hours locked in the cockpit with men, she has accumulated a few funny stories which can be found at Plane & Pilot, Disciples of Flight, NYC Aviation, LinkedIn (450,000 followers) Colorado Serenity, Contrails, Mentor, Consumer Affairs, General Aviation News, Flying.com and Business Insider. She the Director of Instructional Design at Advanced Aircrew Academy and is also a Professor of Aerospace and Aviation at MSU Denver. 

Lola Reid Allin is a former Airline Transport Pilot and flight instructor, as well as a SCUBA Dive Master, and an award-winning author and photographer whose work has appeared in many notable national and international publications, including National Post, Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, National Geographic, Santa Fe Centre for Photography, Verge Magazine: Travel with Purpose, & Grapevine Magazine.  

To promote the role of women in aviation and to encourage other females to consider aviation careers, Lola is a speaker with the Northern Lights Aero Foundation & the Eastern Ontario 99s Education & Outreach Committee.  

Host or Publisher Tattered Cover Book Store