Women Aviators

by Karen Bush Gibson

  People in Alaska, particularly pilots, know how dangerous flying over the North Pole can be. It’s a long flight during which traditional navigation doesn’t work. On clear days, the line of the horizon aids pilots by breaking up the white landscape. But hazardous weather can occur at any time and create even worse whiteout conditions. Modern navigational aids such as GPS help, but it remains a difficult trip.

  Ingrid was born in 1933 in Stockholm, Sweden. Being a pilot was not something she dreamed of while growing up. Instead, she wanted to see wild animals and have adventures in Africa. But then she met Einar Pedersen, whom she called “the Polar Professor.” He was a polar navigator who studied polar ice. His apartment walls were decorated with photographs of wild animals, such as polar bears and seals. In spite of herself, Ingrid found herself drawn to the polar region.

  Einar dared Ingrid to learn to fly. Unable to resist the challenge, she began taking flight lessons in February 1957. Her husband called her a natural-born pilot. After soloing in May, she earned her license in June. She was the 13th woman in Sweden to receive a pilot’s license.

  After the two married, Einar was transferred to Anchorage for an 18-month rotation by Scandinavian Airlines. Ingrid obtained commercial, instrument, and airline-transport ratings. In 1959 they began talking about making the polar flight. Finally, as 1963 approached, they decided it was now or never.

  After the historic flight, they returned to Europe for a while. Ingrid flew commercially through the Arctic as a bush pilot, taking researchers, miners, and supplies to remote locations. During this time, she was frequently the first woman pilot to complete many of the routes she flew. Ingrid is credited with ten first flights, mainly in the polar region.

  During the mid-1970s, the Norwegian Polar Institute hired the Pedersens to place meteorological buoys on the drift ice to collect data. The institute studies the Arctic region and manages the environmental needs in the region. Ingrid taught herself to land a Cessna on drift ice in the Arctic Ocean. Not many pilots can successfully land on moving, icy runways. The Pedersens landed in seven different polar ice locations to set up the buoys that would measure ice drift. On one landing, one of the plane’s skis got stuck, but they were able eventually to break free.

  The Pedersens returned to Alaska in 1979. Ingrid continued piloting commercial flights from Skagway and also became a flight instructor in Anchorage. She became a US citizen in 1985 and volunteered at the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum. Ten years later, she published a book about flying in the Arctic. The title translates to “perfume and motor oil.”

  Today, airliners fly over the North Pole; doing so cuts significant time off routes to Scandinavian countries, Russia, and parts of Asia. But for small planes, this can still be a hazardous trip. Since Ingrid made her flight, other women have made the trip and experienced both the joys and problems. Polly Vacher is one of those women. With a goal of starting a scholarship for disabled pilots, she set out to fly around the globe over both the North and South Poles. When she was flying over the North Pole, her engine stalled. Although she was able to get it started again, the dangers of a crash and small chances of survival made this experienced pilot more than a little nervous.

  Flying over the North Pole was almost unheard of, for male or female pilots, when Ingrid Pedersen made her historic journey. She continued flying in the harsh polar region for many years. For Ingrid, life as a polar aviator meant never a dull moment.

  LEARN MORE

  Flying the Arctic by Captain George H. Wilkins (Kessinger Publishing, 2004)

  The Ice Pilots: Flying with the Mavericks of the Great White North by Michael Vlessides (Douglas and McIntyre, 2011)

  PART V

  Making a Difference

  Women pilots have made their mark in all types of flying: competitive, military, and commercial. Some female pilots quit flying when they were denied the flying careers they were best suited to. Others used their skills and interest in flying to make a difference in the lives of others.

  World War II was a frightening time; people worried about their security. It was also a time when people began to see how aviation could benefit others. One week before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) was created as an aviation group that would do just that. More than 150,000 volunteers logged more than 500,000 flying hours. CAP volunteers delivered cargo and mail to air bases, monitored the country’s borders and provided civil defense. CAP pilots spent 46,725 hours towing targets to provide training for gunners and searchlight operators. They even sank two enemy submarines.

  Women were allowed to fly in noncombat zones, often as couriers for the CAP. At a time when women had a difficult time getting accepted in the CAP, Willa Brown became the first African American to serve as an officer in the Civil Air Patrol. She was the Chicago coordinator and leader of the first integrated unit. Ruth Nichols also served in the CAP as a lieutenant colonel. By the end of World War II, reportedly 20 percent of the Civil Air Patrol was female.

  People donate their time and skills to make the world a better place. Organizations such as the Peace Corps and UNICEF provide education, training, and support throughout the world. Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, and Medical Missions, Inc. provide health care. All of these groups need pilots, as do environmental and religious groups that serve others.

  The Civil Air Patrol Today

  During World War II, people wondered why the Civil Air Patrol couldn’t continue after the war was over. In 1946, president Harry Truman designated the CAP a nonprofit charity. Two years later, Congress passed a law making the CAP an auxiliary of the US Air Force. The CAP continues to provide disaster relief and emergency service, flying for organizations such as the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). CAP volunteers also fly more than 85 percent of the search-and-rescue missions in the continental United States.

  Two other functions of CAP are aerospace education and a cadet program. The aerospace program focuses on educating CAP volunteers and the public. The cadet program provides aeronautic education, leadership training, and physical fitness instruction to youth from ages 12 to 21.

  Twenty-three-year-old Patricia Mawuli is not only one of Ghana’s youngest pilots; she is also the country’s first female pilot. She teaches at Ghana’s Aviation and Technology Academy. In her free time, she volunteers with Medicine on the Move, an organization that delivers medical services to Ghana’s rural population. Patricia delivers supplies and doctors across her country. She also flies over villages and drops educational pamphlets about health issues such as malaria.

  Flying charities, such as Flight Charities, Inc., transport people and supplies to medical facilities and provide assistance after natural disasters occur. Air Charity Network, which has more than 7,500 volunteer pilots, also provides flights for medical emergencies, disaster response, and travel for military personnel. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) oversees and regulates many charitable flights.

  Other flying charities, such as Angel Flight, work under the Air Care Alliance. These organizations provide free air transportation for charitable or nonemergency medical needs. They also transport blood for the Red Cross and the Oklahoma Blood Institute in emergencies. Each pilot must have both a private pilot’s license and a medical certificate as well. The costs of these flights are primarily covered by the pilots themselves, who use their own airplanes and pay for their own operating expenses. Based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Angel Flight primarily serves the central United States but coordinates with other similar services when longer flights are needed—for example, to specialty hospitals.

  Other flying charities and pilots provide service in other countries, which can be challenging, with hostile terrain and a lack of runways. Pilots carry food, medicine, and immunizations—all of which can save lives. Sometimes a pilot might be the difference between people living or dying.

  Yet this aspect of the job is where the reward comes from, knowing one’s flying skills are making a difference
in the lives of others. Women pilots make a difference whether they volunteer to teach Girl Scouts how to fly, work on one of the Ninety-Nine’s many projects, or volunteer for some other organization. Aviation makes a difference in everyone’s life.

  Air Marking

  The next time you go flying, look down. If you see arrows, compasses, or airport names, you are seeing the work of volunteers. The National Air Marking Program was started as a government program under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Air Commerce National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (which later became NASA). Phoebe Omlie, a charter member of the Ninety-Nines, planned the program and put it into action in the 1930s. At the time, most planes did not have radios, and no one had GPS.

  After thousands of directional aids were painted in the 1930s, the markers were blacked out during World War II so as not to serve as targets for enemy bombing. After the war ended, Blanche Noyes headed the program to restore the markers and add even more. Because this was no longer part of a federal program, Blanche gained financial support from civic groups around the country to pay for the air-marking supplies.

  Today’s fellow Ninety-Nines take care of air marking on a voluntary basis. They paint airport names and directional compass roses, sometimes up to 50 feet (15 meters) long, on rooftops and the ground so that pilots can see them from the air.

  Ninety-Nines members have a long history of giving back. Carole Cary-Hopson has mentored at-risk girls in the Eagle Flight Squadron in New Jersey. Eagle Flight Squadron is a nonprofit youth organization that encourages aviation skills. Cary-Hopson worked with one girl who wanted to fly so much that she would take two buses and a train to get to the meetings. That’s dedication—and proof of the many ways that aviation changes lives.

  RUTH NICHOLS

  Relief Wings in Times of Disaster

  RUTH NICHOLS, A PIONEER AVIATOR with dozens of records to her name, saw her world turned upside down by World War II. She began to look at aviation differently. Instead of seeing aviation as a competition to fly faster, higher, and farther than anyone else, Ruth realized that planes could used to help others. With their machines, pilots could give people in needy communities a better chance at surviving by bringing them the goods they lacked or transporting them quickly to medical facilities.

  She joined the Civil Air Patrol and served as a lieutenant colonel. She saw how the organization accomplished many good things for the war effort, but she believed more could be done.

  In 1940, Ruth established Relief Wings as a flying ambulance to help during disasters. When presenting her plan to government officials and the public, Ruth explained how planes could be used for mercy missions. Airplanes could go where ambulances couldn’t. And if the nearest medical facility was far away, a plane could get there faster.

  She recommended twin-motor planes capable of flying through any type of weather. The planes had to be large enough to carry patients on stretchers if needed, plus medical personnel, including a doctor and nurse. Relief Wings later became a service of the Civil Air Patrol, and Ruth continued as an advisor to the air ambulance missions.

  When the war ended, Ruth continued volunteering her time. She worked on missions with UNICEF, including an around-the-world tour for the International Children’s Emergency Fund in 1949. On that trip, the large, four-engine airline carrying Ruth and 56 others overshot its refueling stop—then it ran out of gas and crashed into the North Sea.

  It was nighttime. The water was freezing. Being weighted down with wet clothes made swimming almost impossible. In the moonlight, Ruth spotted an upside-down 10-person raft with 14 of her people hanging on. She made her way to it. The water was rough, causing the raft to dip. At some point, the group was able to tip it over and get inside. The 15 people crowded together, trying to get warm; an unconscious man lay in Ruth’s lap. She started singing hymns, calming everyone down.

  When dawn came, the group counted 11 search planes in the sky. They circled nearby but didn’t spot them. Finally, a 12th plane saw them, and they were rescued. Nine of the original 57 lost their lives.

  Ruth was involved with other humanitarian causes as well, including her work with organizations such as Save the Children, the United Hospital Fund, and the National Nephrosis Foundation.

  Air Ambulances

  Although Ruth Nichols is to be commended for introducing and starting air ambulance services in the United States, she wasn’t the first. Air ambulances have been around longer than airplanes!

  The first air ambulances appeared in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. In this case, the ambulances were hot-air balloons, and they moved injured soldiers to hospitals. In 1910, attempts were made to use airplanes as ambulances, but airplanes were still so relatively new and fragile that often they crashed before reaching hospitals. Although some countries had isolated success with using airplanes as ambulances during World War I, many of the details still hadn’t been worked out. The United States found that the planes couldn’t fit stretchers, and the open cockpit was often harmful to the patients. Bigger planes, particularly those modified to be used as ambulances, were created for use during the 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War. During the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953, helicopters began serving as air ambulances.

  Civil air ambulances didn’t begin to grow until after World War II. The first nonmilitary air ambulance in North America was in Saskatchewan, Canada. In 1947, the first FAA-certified air ambulance in the United States was developed in Los Angeles, California.

  Born in New York City in 1901, Ruth Rowland Nichols came from a well-off family. Her mother was the daughter of a Quaker minister. Ruth said she received her quiet faith from her mother and grandfather; meanwhile, her attitude and personality seemed to come from her father. He was a successful businessman and a member of the New York Stock Exchange. As one of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, Ruth’s father believed she should try everything once, and if she failed, she was to get back up and try again. Although Ruth may have been born to money and privilege, she was also a determined young woman.

  Ruth attended private schools while growing up. When she graduated from high school—the Miss Masters’ School in Dobbs Ferry, New York—her father arranged an airplane ride with Eddie Stinson, a World War I pilot and brother to the Stinson sisters, who were also aviators. Ruth was very excited. Stinson was a hero of hers. But during the flight in a World War I Jenny, Stinson did a loop-the-loop, a big circle in the air that briefly involves flying upside down. Ruth was scared to death and unable to enjoy the rest of the flight.

  But Ruth’s response, when faced with fear, was to confront it. She did this by taking flying lessons while attending college. When she graduated from Wellesley College in 1924, she promptly took the test for her pilot’s license. She passed, becoming the first New York woman pilot and the second woman licensed by the Department of Commerce.

  Conquering her fear led to a love of flying. Despite her parents wanting her to settle down as a proper young woman of the times, she insisted on flying and even learned to fly and fix a Curtiss Seagull, a seaplane. Ruth became the first female seaplane pilot in the United States. No other female pilot of her generation could fly as many types of aircraft as she could. Over the course of her flying career, she flew 71 different kinds of aircraft from 50 different manufacturers. She earned 12 different ratings in everything from monoplanes to supersonic jets.

  In January 1928, Ruth flew a Fairchild FC-2 from New York to Miami with Harry Rogers, the owner of an airline. As the first flight of its kind, the trip received a lot of publicity and led the newspapers to christen Ruth “the Flying Debutante.”

  In her purple flying suit, flying helmet, scarf, and goggles, Ruth became a familiar sight in newspapers and on airfields. This was especially true in 1929, when she landed in all 48 states (Alaska and Hawaii weren’t states yet) on a promotional tour for aviation country clubs.

  As one of the original Ninety-Nines, Ruth joined her fellow female aviators at the Women’s Air Derby and Nationa
l Air Race. She set a women’s transcontinental record flying from New York to Los Angeles in 16 hours, 59 minutes, and 30 seconds. She shaved almost four hours off that time on the return trip.

  The International League of Aviators honored two women in 1931 for their accomplishments in the advancement of aviation. They included French flier Maryse Bastié, for a 1,800-mile (2,900 kilometer) record-breaking flight from France to Russia, and Ruth Nichols, for her speed and altitude records.

  Ruth prepared to be the first female to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean to Paris. Her plane was said to be three times as powerful as Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis, capable of speeds 50 to 75 miles per hour (80 to 120 kilometers per hour) faster than Lindbergh’s aircraft. The red monoplane, which belonged to Crosley Radio Corporation, was the same red monoplane she had set records in. One of those records was for speed—210 miles per hour (340 kilometers per hour). Briefly, she set another for altitude, but Elinor Smith soon broke it. Speed records were Ruth’s favorite, and she tried to close in on male records.

  Ruth’s first attempt as the first woman to pilot solo across the Atlantic led to a crash in Newfoundland during the first leg of her trip. Blinded by the sun, she overshot the runway. The plane tipped at its nose. She fractured five of her vertebrae, and while she was recovering from this serious injury, another female aviator, Amelia Earhart, captured the record, becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

  Disappointed, Ruth threw herself into making other records. In one of her first flights after her accident, she set a woman’s distance record of 1,977 miles (3,181 kilometers). For some of the first races, she wore a steel corset due to her spinal injury. At one point, she had to leap out of a burning airplane after a fuel leak started a fire.