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With Wings to Fly

© Katie Anne Gustafsson

When most people think about women in the history of aviation, they will immediately think of Amilia Earhart. Ms Earhart was the first woman to fly solo over the Atlantic, and her disappearance in July 1937 somewhere near Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean has caused speculation ever since. However, the story of women in flight history goes much further back than that.

In fact Lady Lindy, as Earhart became known by the media, was only 9 years old, when in 1906 women began to infiltrate the male citadel of aviation in the shape of E. Lillian Todd, who designed and built aircraft. Four years later, Blanche Stuart Scott had the honour of being the first woman to fly solo, and the following year, journalist Harriet Quimby became the first American woman not only to earn a pilots licence, but also to cross the English Channel. It was to take another 10 years before Bessie Coleman made history, not only because she was a woman, but because she was African-American, the first African-American (of either gender) to receive a pilot's license. Although our culture is such that when we sit down on an aircraft, we expect to hear a male voice announcing itself as the Captain, in fact women have been piloting scheduled aircraft since 1934 when Helen Richey, employed by Central Airlines, became the first woman Airline Pilot.

Since those early days, women have gone from strength to strength across the skies. Not only in peacetime, but also in war. Although women were flying in Europe during WWI, it was not until 1942 that the Women's US Military Pilots (WASPs) were formed and women took to the air. Flying more than 60 million miles in every kind of US aircraft, and on very type of mission flown by the Army Air Force, except combat, 38 of these pioneers of women's military aviation history lost their lives but were denied a military funeral. It was not until 1977 that the 1074 women who passed through training and earned their silver wings were acknowledged as having Veteran Status. After the WASPs were disbanded in 1944, it would be 29 years before US women once again were allowed the right to earn their wings. Today there are more than 300 pilots in US military service, but only a select few of those are able to fly in combat, even as we approach the new Millennium, women are being judged by gender rather than ability. In contrast to this, Dr. Sheila Widnall became the first woman Secretary of the Air Force in 1993, knocking down yet another barrier in the war against male supremacy in the military.