Women and flight

Definition: A brief history of women’s accomplishments in the world of aviation.

Significance: The contributions made by women in flight have been extensive, from aviation to the space program.

In the early days of aviation, women faced many more obstacles than just finding a way to fly. Original notions of human flight implicitly involved the image of men. Though individual women pilots—or aviatrixes, as they were then known—have been involved in powered flight since its inception, they faced both societal and legal obstacles that male pilots did not.

Women constantly had to prove themselves worthy of a chance to enter the cockpit. Even after overcoming external obstacles to flying, many early female applicants could not find a flight school or an instructor that would accept a female student. Prevailing prejudices held that women had neither the physical nor the mental capability to handle an aircraft. British aviation pioneer Claude Grahame-White once proclaimed that “women lack qualities which make for safety in aviation” and “are temperamentally unfitted for the sport.” When famed aviator Amelia Earhart wanted to learn to fly, she sought out a woman instructor, feeling uncomfortable with male pilots' attitudes toward women flying. Fortunately, she found Neta Snook, the first woman ever admitted to the Curtiss Flying School in Virginia and the first to operate a commercial airfield.

Flight, the Ultimate Adventure

Women have been a part of aviation from its very beginnings. Six months before the Wright brothers’ historic 1903 flight, American socialite Aida de Acosta became the first woman to pilot a powered, lighter-than-air dirigible with a three-horsepower engine unaccompanied. Her flight was not reported in the press because her parents feared it would make her unmarriageable. Six years later, French actor Raymonde de Laroche became the first woman to fly a heavier-than-aircraft solo. Soon after, she received the thirty-sixth pilot's license the Aéro-Club de France issued, as the first thirty-five had gone to men.

Women were piloting aircraft as early as 1798 when Jeanne-Geneviève Labrosse made a solo balloon flight over France. Margaret Graham of England dedicated a thirty-year career to the sport of balloon flying by charging a fee for carrying passengers for a ride, most likely becoming the first woman charter pilot. Mary Myers set altitude records in balloons, including one ascent to 21,000 feet over Pennsylvania in 1886, which she accomplished without the aid of oxygen.

In 1911, Amelie "Melli" Beese became Germany’s first woman aviator, participating in a flight display at the first airfield in Berlin. She successfully obtained her pilot's license soon after the display, despite her male colleagues attempting to sabotage her by tampering with her plane’s steering mechanism and draining gas from the fuel tank on the day of her exam.

Women in Early Competition

It was not unusual in the late 1920s for women pilots to go into business for themselves. Women established passenger-carrying operations in several cities, but these ventures did little to promote women in aviation. To receive national recognition, they would have to compete in the record-breaking arenas of distance, altitude, and speed, as male pilots already did.

Viola Gentry is credited with setting the first women's flying endurance record (without refueling), staying aloft for eight hours and six minutes on December 20, 1928. Two weeks later, her record was broken by Evelyn "Bobbi" Trout, who managed to stay in flight for more than twelve hours. The following spring, Elinor Smith astounded fliers everywhere by staying in the air for more than twenty-six hours.

The first Women’s Air Derby, the first women-only air race in the United States, was held in 1929. The race began in Santa Monica, California, and ended in Cleveland, Ohio. The winner was Louise Thaden, who defeated nineteen other competitors, including Trout and Earhart.

When World War II began, it appeared that American women pilots would be grounded or forced to fly only in civilian capacities. Thanks to people such as test pilots and racers Jacqueline Cochran and Nancy Harkness Love, American women had the opportunity to pilot and help with the war effort. Before the United States entered the war, many women, Cochran included, went to England to join the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), a British civilian organization established to ferry military aircraft to and from active service squadrons and airfields. The women of the ATA flew with great valor, facing many obstacles.

Cochran and Love independently submitted proposals to US Army Air Forces (USAAF) commander General Henry H. Arnold, suggesting a similar organization be established in the United States. Arnold initially turned down both proposals, but he reconsidered after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the subsequent US entrance into the war. In 1942, the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) and the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) were established under the commands of Love and Cochran, respectively. They merged the following year to form the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), with Cochran as director and Love in charge of ferrying operations.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union established three Soviet Air Forces regiments—the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment, the 587th Bomber Aviation Regiment, and the 588th Night Bomber Regiment (members of which were nicknamed "Night Witches" by the Germans)—composed of women who gladly utilized their skills as pilots to help the Allies win the war. Many of these pioneer women pilots enlisted in war efforts against the wishes of their husbands and families.

Breaking into the Field

Modern aviation has changed much from the early days of flight. In the earliest aircraft, pilot judgment, skill, and the aircraft itself made for a successful flight. The sky was all but free from other aircraft; rules and regulations were practically nonexistent. There were only a few types of aircraft available. Famed pilot Dorothy Hester would often recount that it was a delight to fly in 1927: “Everything looked so neat from up there, and you feel so free. You were your own boss and you could get up there alone.”

Dorothy Hester started flying in 1927, a day after her seventeenth birthday. She found a place where she could go for an airplane ride. She funded her adventure with her birthday money. The biplane was a Waco 9 with a Curtiss OX-S engine. She sat in an open cockpit and felt the rush of air sweep over her when the engine started. “When we lifted off the ground, my heart swelled and I felt like I was in heaven,” she later recalled. “It was the most wonderful feeling I had ever had, and I decided right then that I had found my calling.” After landing, she said to a salesman, “If I were a boy, I would certainly learn to fly,” the salesman said that the Rankin School of Flying, owned by barnstormer and flight instructor Tex Rankin, would teach her anyway. The only problem was obtaining the $250 she needed to pay for the ground course, a large sum at the time. Rankin mentioned that if she were male, she could earn the money by parachute jumping in his air shows. Indignant at the implication that women could not parachute merely because of their gender, Hester convinced Rankin through persistent arguments to break the established men-only barrier in the air.

Hester’s determination has since become legendary. She was the first woman in Oregon to parachute during an aerial show. She got $100 per jump, and she earned her pilot’s license and flew. Dorothy Hester also held the world record for most inverted snap rolls (fifty-six) and most consecutive outside loops (sixty-two) for more than half a century (the latter record was broken by stunt pilot Joann Osterud in 1989).

Many factors have changed over the years, such as the airplane itself. In the first days of female pilots, women were considered good if they could fly like men because it meant they had the physical strength to manhandle the airplane. As airplanes improved, so did the chances for female pilots, as it became no longer necessary to muscle an airplane around.

Groundbreakers and Pioneers

Beryl Markham, born in 1902, was a famous adventurer and bush pilot most widely known for her record-breaking solo flight from east to west across the Atlantic in 1936 and her best-selling memoir West with the Night (1942). Markham was possibly the best pilot to fly out of Kenya and certainly the boldest. Some likened her courage to that of a lion. In April 1932, with only 127 hours of flying time, she set off alone from Kenya in a single-engine Avro Avian headed for England. She first headed for Lake Victoria, then over Uganda and down the Nile River, crossing the seemingly endless expanses of marsh and swamp known as the Sudd. She then crossed the Mediterranean Sea and Europe and arrived in England. Markham repeated this trip several times in the early 1930s. While in Kenya, she worked as a bush pilot, transporting people and supplies. She worked for safari companies and even became a flying elephant-herd spotter. All of her daring escapades culminated in one flight that topped them all. On September 4, 1936, she began a twenty-two-hour flight, mostly at night and mostly on instruments, headed across the Atlantic, west with the night. Beryl Markham was an inspiration for millions as a true woman flying pioneer. She died in 1986.

Ruth Law became the first woman to fly at night in 1912. She was also the first to loop the loop. She made a living by taking Florida tourists on joyrides for $50. Law was renowned as an inventor, and she solved the problem of keeping a map readily accessible. She cut the map of her route into eight-inch-wide strips and affixed them to cloth, creating a cloth map that she could tie to her knee during the flight and roll out one section at a time, thus keeping her hands free to operate the controls. In 1917, after breaking the cross-country record, Law commanded a salary of nearly $9,000 a week for her exhibitions. Even earlier, Matilde Moisant, born in 1886, was the second licensed woman pilot in the United States and the first woman to fly to an altitude of 1,200 feet. Moisant qualified for her license after only thirty-two minutes of in-flight instruction. In so doing, she established the record for the shortest time spent learning to fly, which has never been broken. The first American woman to earn a pilot’s license was Harriet Quimby in 1911, who started her plane manually by turning the propeller.

Amelia Earhart was the best-known woman pilot of the early twentieth century. She flew across the Atlantic with two companions in June 1928 and became the first woman to make a solo crossing in 1932. She piloted a Lockheed Vega on the west-east solo flight from Honolulu to California on January 11–12, 1935. Earhart was lost in an attempt to fly around the world with pioneer aerial navigator Fred Noonan.

Florence Lowe “Pancho” Barnes was a record-breaking stunt pilot who eventually headed the Women’s Air Reserve in 1931. She was the first woman to fly into Mexico. Barnes gained additional notoriety four decades later when she was profiled in author Tom Wolfe’s epic history of the first US space program, Project Mercury. In his book The Right Stuff, Wolfe writes of Barnes and her famous bar, where she catered to the early US astronauts and test pilots. Fran Bera held the record for the most wins at the Women’s Air Derby. She learned to fly at sixteen, got her commercial license, taught aviation, and worked for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), issuing licenses to pilots. At the Women’s Air Derby, however, she gained the greatest fame, winning five second-place trophies and seven first-place trophies. In June 1966, Bera set a new world altitude record for flying to a height of 40,194 feet over Long Beach, California. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of Charles A. Lindbergh, was the first American woman to earn a glider pilot’s license. She served as her husband’s navigator when he set a transcontinental speed record in 1930 when she was seven months pregnant. She was also a best-selling author.

In 1964, Geraldine “Jerrie” Frederitz Mock became the first woman to fly around the world, twenty-seven years after Amelia Earhart’s disappearance in 1937. Joan Merriam Smith was flying with the same goal in mind at the same time and completed her trip successfully, but Mock had registered first with the FAA and, therefore, won the title. Her plane was named Spirit of Columbus. Katrina Mumaw was the first male or female child to pilot a plane through the sound barrier. FAA regulations do not allow anyone under seventeen to be issued a pilot certificate, but training can begin at any age. She fell in love with aviation at the age of three. She took her first plane ride at age five and began training with a flight instructor when she was eight. In 1994, Mumaw broke the sound barrier at the age of eleven. At thirteen, she competed and spoke at air meets and aviation events around the state.

Women Aviators in the Military and Space

The fight to be allowed into the military has been a long and hard struggle for women. Their first toehold came during World War II when the need to use all qualified male pilots in battle opened opportunities for female pilots in noncombatant roles. Nancy Harkness Love, already a commercial airline pilot, was one of the first women to head a military unit of female pilots, the WAFS, which ferried military planes from manufacturing sites to air force bases. Cornelia Fort, a flight instructor who was the first Tennessee woman to qualify for her commercial pilot’s license, was the second woman to volunteer for the WAFS; she was in the air when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Fort died in a 1943 midair collision while ferrying a plane. She was the first woman to die in US military duty.

Mildred McAfee was the first director of the Women Appointed for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES). The WAVES were created by an act of Congress on July 30, 1942. When she was appointed to lead them, McAfee became the first woman ever commissioned as an officer in the US Navy. She retired from the WAVES as a full captain in December 1946. For her service, she received the Distinguished Service Medal.

In the years since World War II, many women have broken gender barriers to become successful military pilots. Trish Beckman was among the first women trained to be a United States Navy test pilot. Sarah Deal was the first woman aviator in the US Marine Corps. Troy Devine was the first woman captain in the US Air Force U-2 program. Kelly Flinn was the first woman to pilot a B-52 bomber for the US Air Force. Patricia Fornes was the first woman to lead a US Air Force ICBM Unit. In June 1993, Fornes took command of the 740th Missile Squadron at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota. She also became the first woman to take over the command of a squadron once commanded by her father. Colleen Nevius was the US Navy’s first woman test pilot and the first woman to graduate from the Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. In 2002, Amy McGrath became the first woman to fly a combat mission for the US Marine Corps, the combat flight restriction on women having been lifted nine years earlier.

In space aviation, Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space, launching the Vostok 6 spacecraft on June 16, 1963. Sally K. Ride was the first American woman in space and the youngest American astronaut to orbit the earth, launching the space shuttle Challenger on June 18, 1983. Judith Arlene Resnik was the second American woman to enter space and the first Jewish astronaut. In 1996, Linda M. Godwin performed the first-ever spacewalk while docked to an orbiting space station. Shannon W. Lucid has logged more continuous time in space than any other American astronaut, male or female. Lucid spent seven months on the Mir space station in 1996. She was also the first American woman to go into space five times.

In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed legislation that removed the barrier for women to enter federal military academies. Also, in the mid-1970s, women were allowed to enter military flight training. In June 1976, the first female cadets entered the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The class of 1980 was the first to include female graduates. One of these, Janet Wolfenbarger, would become the Air Force’s first four-star general. In 1993, women were authorized to begin flying fighter aircraft. Ten years later, following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, women were routinely flying combat missions in contingency operations. In 1983, Sally Ride became the first female astronaut to enter space aboard the US Space Shuttle Challenger. Then, in the 2020s, as the US began its effort to return humans to the moon, Christina Hammock Koch was slated to be the first female to step foot on the lunar surface. Paving the way for this monumental event were all the female pilots and astronauts who came before her and fought for equality in space aviation, including four US female Space Shuttle astronauts—Christa McAuliffe, Judith Resnik, Kalpana Chawla, and Laurel Clark—who gave their lives to advance American space exploration.

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