Women Aviators
Page 15
Flying a helicopter isn’t easier than piloting an airplane. The European flight schools that Jennifer looked at required anywhere from 45 to 60 hours of flight time, seven written exams, and a radio test. Even people who already hold airplane pilot licenses must fly an additional 39 hours in a helicopter before they can test for the license.
In 1994, Jennifer received her helicopter pilot’s license. She heard that only three men had traveled around the world with a helicopter, and they had used autopilot. Jennifer made the trip in 1997 with a copilot and became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe in a helicopter. At the same time, she raised $100,000 for Save the Children. This first trip was a latitudinal journey from east to west. She did it again in 2000 by herself and without autopilot. She was the first person, male or female, to take a piston-engine helicopter around the world.
Jennifer does more than set records. She also enters races, such as the London to Sydney Air Race of 2001 in which she placed third. She has also run races, such as the 250-kilometer (155 mile) race across the Namib Desert supporting the Scott Polar Research Institute, which she attempted at age 69.
Many of Jennifer’s adventures, whether in a helicopter or on foot, benefit charities such as Operation Smile and SOS Children’s Villages.
LEARN MORE
Now Solo: One Woman’s Record-Breaking Flight Around the World by Jennifer Murray (Mainstream Publishing, 2002)
Polar First website, www.polarfirst.com
Polar First by Jennifer Murray (PPP Company, 2008)
IDA VAN SMITH
Teaching Children to Fly
IMAGINE A GROUP OF CHILDREN, both boys and girls, on an airfield, with lots of bright smiles and perhaps more than a few lips trembling with fear. Chances are, all eyes are big with wonder. They take trips to airports, visit aerospace museums, and learn how to do preflight checks. Many get to ride in a real airplane. Often it’s the first airplane ride they have ever taken.
Welcome to an Ida Van Smith Flight Club gathering, where minority children can learn to fly.
Ida Van Smith opened her clubs because she wanted children to have opportunities that took her half a century to experience. She said, “I believe that anything children do very young, they will probably be able to learn better and feel more at ease with than if they wait and they were my age to begin.”
Learning to fly airplanes had been her dream since she saw her first one at the age of three. Being both African American and female meant that there was more standing in the way of that dream, but she never forgot it.
Finally, in 1967, 50-year-old grandmother and teacher Ida Van Smith took flying lessons. She had looked into classes at Butler Aviation School at LaGuardia Airport in New York, but she received too many stares. She decided to shop around and found an instructor she liked at Fayetteville’s Grannis Field Airport in her home state of North Carolina.
After she earned her pilot’s license and instructor rating, this history and special education teacher opened a flight club in Long Island, New York. With a grant from the FAA, she was able to get an aircraft simulator. She provided a Cessna 172. Ida was the first African American female flight instructor in New York and the first African American female pilot from North Carolina.
Once per month during the 1970s, Smith held workshops at York College in Jamaica, New York. She invited air-traffic controllers, commercial pilots, airplane mechanics, and other people in aviation to talk with students from the Ida Van Smith Flight Clubs.
Funding for the program often came from Ida’s own pockets in the early days. But word of Ida’s schools caught on and spread. More than 20 schools opened in locations in New York, North Carolina, Texas, and St. Lucia in the Caribbean. Thousands of young people from ages 3 to 19 have experienced aviation through the Ida Van Smith Flight Clubs, and many have gone on to aviation careers with airlines or in the military.
Born in Lumberton, North Carolina, in 1917, Ida remembered her father taking her to see a barnstorming exhibition at the airport when she was three or four years old. It was an image that stayed with her. She was fascinated by aviation, but it would be almost 50 years before she became a licensed pilot. She founded the Ida Van Smith Flight Clubs in 1967, introducing children and young adults to the careers that aviation and space had to offer.
Ida moved to New York City after graduating from Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the 1940s. She earned her master’s degree at Queens College in New York City and began teaching in New York City’s schools. Ida also hosted a cable-television show on aviation and taught introductory aviation at York College of the City University of New York. She wrote articles for aviation and education journals in addition to a newspaper column titled, “Come Fly with Me.” She was honored many times for her contributions to education and aviation, including becoming the first African American woman inducted into the International Forest of Friendship in Atchison, Kansas.
With her belief that you’re never too young to learn about aviation, Ida also created the Fly with Me Coloring Book. The 32-page coloring book has a story about flying within its pages.
Retiring from teaching in 1977, Ida remained active with her flight schools and the flying groups she was a member of—Ninety-Nines, Black Wings, and Negro Airmen International—until her death in 2003. The Ida Van Smith Flight Clubs (sometimes known as the Ida Van Smith-Dunn flight clubs) have earned many honors for their work with youth.
Youth Flight Clubs
The Ida Van Smith Flight Clubs aren’t the only clubs dedicated to introducing aviation to children. The Royal Air Force of Great Britain sponsors the Air Cadets Organisation for young people between 13 and 20 years of age. Not only are students introduced to aviation, but the Air Cadets program also provides training.
The program actually has a long history, starting in 1859, girls were not allowed to join until the early 1980s. A similar program operates in Canada: the Royal Canadian Air Cadets. Operating in other places throughout the world are the Experimental Aircraft Association Young Eagles programs for 8- to 17-year-olds. The program starts with a free flight and then offers different steps for young people interested in aviation. Smaller programs are offered in various communities. For instance, the Bronze Eagles Flying Club was started about 45 years ago by African American pilots in Houston but has spread throughout Texas and Arkansas. The club’s goal is to expose African American youth to the possibilities of aviation through an annual fly-in event and a two-week Summer Flight Academy. The Summer Flight Academy teaches 16 high school students how to fly. Some of the participants, such as Decarla Greaves, have gone on to careers in aviation.
LEARN MORE
American Women and Flight Since 1940 by Deborah G. Douglas, Amy E. Foster, Alan D. Meyer, and Lucy B. Young (University Press of Kentucky, 2004)
“Ida Van Smith” on the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum website, http://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/topics/women/SmithV.cfm
JERRIE COBB
Missionary Pilot
JERRIE COBB MAY HAVE started piloting airplanes younger than any other woman. She flew her father’s 1936 Waco bi-wing when she was 12 years old. She loved flying the plane with her father, Lieutenant Colonel William H. Cobb, by her side.
Born in Norman, Oklahoma, on March 5, 1931, Geraldyn “Jerrie” Cobb was the younger of two daughters. Within weeks of her birth, the family moved to Washington, DC, where her grandfather was a congressman. Due to World War II and her father’s service in the National Guard, the family also moved to other places during her childhood.
As a child, she enjoyed sleeping in the backyard and looking at the stars. She had traded her blond pigtails for a blond ponytail by the time she earned her private pilot’s license at age 16, which was the earliest age at which a person could get one. Still attending an Oklahoma City high school, she spent her spare time at the airfield, performing odd jobs such as washing and waxing planes in exchange for flying time. During her 16th summer, she barnstormed across the Midwes
t in a Piper Cub. Her first job after high school was flying a Piper Cub over towns, dropping circulars.
Jerrie spent one year in college before quitting. She already knew what she wanted to do: fly. She played semiprofessional softball for the Oklahoma City Queens to raise enough money to buy a Fairchild PT-23, a World War II surplus plane. With a commercial license at age 18, Jerrie began crop dusting, flying charters, and patrolling oil pipelines while she worked on her flight instructor’s license. By 21, she was giving flight instruction.
Always ready for an adventure, Jerrie took a job ferrying military planes and bombers for the Peruvian Air Force in 1953. She got the job because male pilots thought it was too risky. She crossed shark-infested waters, Andean mountains, and jungles. Once, while refueling in Ecuador, she was arrested on suspicion of being a spy.
Back in Oklahoma at age 24, she began setting world altitude, speed, and distance records. She set an altitude record of 30,300 feet (9,240 meters) and a world distance record from Guatemala City to Oklahoma City in a twin-engine Aero Commander. The records had previously been held by Soviet military pilots. In all, Jerrie earned four world aviation records for light planes.
Like Jackie Cochran, Jerrie broke the sound barrier; her experience was with a TR-102 Delta Dagger. She learned to fly the Bell helicopter after 83 minutes of instruction and became the first female test pilot for Aero Design and Engineering Company.
By the time she was 28, she had logged about 10,000 flight hours. The National Pilot’s Association also presented her with the Harmon Trophy as the world’s best female pilot. The same year, she was named “Woman of the Year” by the Women’s National Aeronautic Association. Along with the Amelia Earhart Gold Medal of Achievement, Jerrie received dozens of awards during her flying career.
When NASA started investigating the possibility of female astronauts in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Jerrie Cobb was its first choice. Not only did she have twice as many flight hours as astronaut John Glenn, she had piloted 64 types of aircraft. She passed all 75 tests, scoring in the top 2 percent of all male or female astronaut candidates. When the government shut the program down, Jerrie spoke before Congress and tried to convince them to change their minds—without success. They asked her to be a NASA consultant, but after two years of receiving no consulting work, she quit.
Disappointed, 32-year-old Jerrie took her aviation skills to new and unknown territory—the Amazon rainforest, an area that is larger than the United States. The natives called her plane, a twin-engine Britten-Norman Islander, “the bird.” Her landing strip was small, surrounded by 200-foot (61 meter) trees. The jungle is a difficult place to fly. Even taking off is a challenge, as a pilot must pull up quickly without stalling the engine.
The Amazon rainforest was one of the last wild places on Earth to which Jerrie could go. She carried with her antibiotics and other medicines, doctors, clothing, and seeds to grow into food for millions of people. When needed, she located downed aircraft. One day, Jerrie sat with the young chief of a village who was dying of meningitis, a white man’s disease that was unknown to the native population. She felt helpless as he lay dying. She began a foundation to buy medicine and crop seeds for the people she served. She took on special projects as well. At one time, she returned displaced Miskito people back to their homes in Nicaragua.
Jerrie made humanitarian trips to Amazonia, as South America’s rainforest area is sometimes known, for 35 years. She was honored by the governments of Brazil, Peru, and Colombia for humanitarian flying to serve the indigenous people. Colombia even gave her an honorary rank in the Colombian Air Force. The government of Ecuador honored Jerrie in 1965 for pioneering new air routes through the Amazon. Twenty years later, Central and South American groups were still singing her praises for her lifesaving jungle flights.
For almost thirty-five years, she lived in remote villages in Central and South America. Her primary area was the land where Colombia, Brazil, and Venezuela meet; the people there spend most of their daytime hours searching for food, primarily cassava, a starchy root. At night she would sleep in a hammock in a maloca, a communal home covered with palm leaves that houses 60 to 80 Indians. Canoes were the primary mode of transportation other than walking. Jerrie used her phenomenal aviation skills to improve the lives of millions of people and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her work in 1981.
In 1998, former astronaut John Glenn returned to space on a mission that would study the effects of space travel on older adults. NASA didn’t realize what it was taking on by planning this new mission. Several members of the Mercury 13, the group of women who were to undergo astronaut training in the early 1960s, protested. They had waited more than 40 years for their first opportunity to go into space, and John Glenn was going a second time.
The story of the Mercury 13 received attention, and women such as Jerrie Cobb won a new group of admirers who agreed it was Jerrie’s turn to go to space. It was enough to bring her home from the Amazon. She called going into space her destiny. “I’ve thought about it all my life. I will do whatever it takes.”
A campaign began. People began contacting NASA and Congress, sending them T-shirts that said, WOMEN FLY. They circulated petitions, collecting more than 15,000 signatures. The First Lady at the time, Hillary Clinton, asked Daniel Goldin of NASA to meet with Jerrie. Goldin was in charge of astronaut selection and had received the petitions. Jerrie dared to get her hopes up one more time, but Goldin said they had enough astronauts.
Today, Jerrie has flown more than 55,000 hours and continues to fly. She is in excellent physical condition from her time in the Amazon. If she could have one thing, it would be the opportunity that was denied to her more than 50 years ago. She wants to fly the ultimate flight—into space. Until then, she’s content to remain in the Amazon jungles and help others. In doing so, she said, she feels like the luckiest woman in the world.
LEARN MORE
Jerrie Cobb Foundation website, www.jerrie-cobb.org
Jerrie Cobb, Solo Pilot by Jerrie Cobb (Jerrie Cobb Foundation, 1997)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MANY YEARS AGO, I BECAME acquainted with Bessie Coleman in a museum exhibit. I had never heard of this fascinating woman, who had done so much in such a short time, and that’s unfortunate. Bessie Coleman is a name we should all know, as is Jerrie Cobb and the names of all the other amazing women featured in this book. Telling their stories in this book was an honor and a privilege for me. I’m only sorry that I couldn’t feature even more women aviators.
I am deeply indebted to the Ninety-Nines, Inc. International Organization of Women Pilots. In the years that I’ve been learning and writing about women aviators, their artifacts and resources have been invaluable. (If you’re ever in the Oklahoma City area, you should stop by the Ninety-Nines Museum of Women Pilots near the airport.) Special thanks goes to Laura Ohrenberg from the Ninety-Nines headquarters.
Another incredible resource has been Texas Woman’s University. Its Woman’s Collection included a vast amount of information about women in aviation, Women Airforce Service Pilots, and the Whirly-Girls organization.
And finally, thank you to Jerome Pohlen and all the great people at Chicago Review Press for allowing me the opportunity to write about what fascinates me.
NOTES
Introduction
The reference to Katharine Wright as “the third Wright brother” is located at the Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company at www.wright-brothers.org/Information_Desk/Just_the_Facts/Wright_Family/Katharine_Wright/Katharine_Wright.htm.
The quote attributed to Clare Boothe Luce comes from the Clare Boothe Luce biography at the Henry Luce Foundation website, www.hluce.org/cblbio.aspx.
Part I: Pioneers of Aviation
Baroness de Laroche
Elise de Laroche’s quote about her flight for Tsar Nicholas II came from an article she wrote, published in Collier’s Magazine, volume 48, September 20, 1911. The article’s title was “Flying in Presence of the Czar.”
Harriet’s description of her history-making flight came from an article she wrote for Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly. “An American Girl’s Daring Exploit” appeared in the magazine on May 16, 1912.
Her article, “How a Woman Learns to Fly,” also appeared in Leslie’s. It was published May 25, 1911.
Part II: The Golden Age of Flight
Louise Thaden’s quote about the Women’s Air Derby comes from her autobiography, High, Wide, and Frightened (page 51).
The quote about the first Ninety-Nines meeting comes from a November 2, 1929, article in the New York Times.
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart’s last words are featured in many locations, including her official website, www.ameliaearhart.com/about/bio2.html.
Earhart’s statement to Louise Thaden is featured on the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum website, www.ameliaearhartmuseum.org/AmeliaEarhart/AEAviator.htm.
Louise Thaden
Louise Thaden’s quotes about winning the Bendix come from her autobiography, High, Wide, and Frightened.
Elinor Smith
The Elinor Smith quotes come from her autobiography, Aviatrix.
Edna Gardner Whyte
The quotes by Edna Gardner Whyte come from her autobiography, Rising Above It: An Autobiography.
Beryl Markham
The quote about the Atlantic Crossing came from an account of her trip that she wrote for the Daily Express. It was repeated on http://library.thinkquest.org/21229/bio/bmark.htm.