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The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) on Saturday, September 24, honored Mireille Goyer of Delta, B.C., Canada, with the 2011 Let’s Go Flying Award, for her worldwide efforts to draw women into aviation. The award was presented during the AOPA Aviation Summit at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, Conn.

Mireille Goyer originally began flying for the pure enjoyment of it. But it was not long before she earned her instructor’s certificate in order to share the joy.

In late 2009, she was searching for events marking the Centennial of Licensed Women Pilots (March 8, 2010) in which she could participate. To her dismay, she found none. Determined to not let this important milestone for women pilots go unnoticed and uncelebrated, she launched a worldwide campaign and encouraged pilots everywhere to introduce a girl or a woman to flying as a salute to Raymonde de Laroche earning her pilot certificate in 1910. As a result, more than 1,600 girls and women in 36 countries on four continents discovered aviation.

Realizing that the small number of women pilots could have contributed to the Centennial oversight and that the need to promote aviation to women would continue beyond the end of the Centennial year, Ms. Goyer launched the annual Women Of Aviation Worldwide Week initiative in 2011 as the world celebrated the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.

"Women are the great untapped pool of potential pilots," said AOPA President and CEO Craig L. Fuller. "Here in the United States, they make up only about 6% of the total pilot population. Ms. Goyer’s efforts to urge more women to learn to fly are in the finest tradition of AOPA’s Let’s Go Flying campaign to grow the pilot population."

Ms. Goyer holds single and multi-engine ATP certificates in the United States and an ATPL license in Canada. She has flown a variety of aircraft from single-engine airplanes to twin turboprops.

The Let’s Go Flying Award honors the individual or organization that best demonstrates the passion and commitment needed to ensure the future of general aviation by ensuring that there are pilots to fly.