8 Amazing Early Women Aviators
There have been countless female aviators since 1903, when Aida de Acosta, at 19, took the women’s first solo flight on a dirigible in Paris. This article cannot attempt to honor them all. But in celebration of Women’s History Month, and also Women in Aviation Worldwide Week (March 7–13), let’s look at a few shining stars of female flight.
1. Baroness Raymonde de Laroche
De Laroche was the first woman to receive a pilot’s license in France in 1910. She was the daughter of a plumber, and was a gifted actress, balloonist, engineer, and a military Chauffeur during WWI. She died in 1919 in an aircraft crash at age 36.
2. Bessica Raiche
In 1910, Raiche was the first American woman to fly solo (a feat that was also carried out that year by Blanche Stuart Scott, though it was not accredited by the Aeronautical Society of America). Raiche was a renaissance woman in other ways: she drove, wore pants, shot guns, and was a doctor, artist, linguist, and musician. She built an aircraft inspired by the Wright Brothers out of piano wire, bamboo, and silk.
3. Bessie Coleman
Coleman was the first African-American woman to fly publically in the US in 1922, and was known for parachuting and stunt flying. Born to a family of sharecroppers, she attended university, only briefly due to financial constraints, and worked as a manicurist. Stories of WWI pilots piqued her interest and in order to earn a license she learned French and attended the Caudron Brother’s School of Aviation in France, becoming the world’s first black woman to do so. She was killed in a crash at age 34.
4. Amelia Earhart
In 1932 Earhart was the first woman to fly non-stop and solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She also worked as an editor with Cosmo and a designer for Macy’s. Her other memorable flights included: Los Angeles to Newark, Hawaii to the U.S. mainland, Los Angeles and Mexico City, and her attempt to fly around the world, during which she tragically disappeared forever over the Pacific. Mashable shares this Earhart quote:
“The woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune.”
5. Willa Brown
Brown was the first African American woman to earn a pilot’s and commercial license (in 1938 and 1939) in the US. She later started the Coffey School of Aeronautics at Chicago’s Harlem Airport, which was chosen as one of few black aviation programs to offer the Civilian Pilot Training Program by the Civil Aeronautics Administration. Brown was also the first female black member of the Civil Air Patrol in 1942.
6. Margaret Phelan Taylor
Taylor was a member of the WASP: Women Airforce Service Pilots, which emerged in 1942 when the US faced a shortage of pilots in WWII. About 1,100 female civilian volunteers flew military aircraft in testing, towing, ferrying and training programs. Taylor, from Iowa, asked her father for money for a pilot’s license. NPR reports that she said,
“I told him I had to do it.”
Unlike men, women volunteers were required to have previous flight training. 38 women lost their lives during this service. Jacqueline Cochran, who was later the first woman to break the sound barrier, was the head of the WASP program, which was disbanded in 1944. Many women were unable to get jobs as pilots afterwards, especially with major airlines. In 1976 a group of remaining WASP members lobbied Congress to be granted military status. This status was granted in 1977 and in 2009 they were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
7. Beverly Burns
Burns became the very first female pilot to command a Boeing 747 in 1984. She was inspired to become a pilot after an officer told her that women were not smart enough to do so, during her flight attendant days. She retired in 2008, having logged 25,000 hours of flight time.
8. Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (Russian: Валенти́на Влади́мировна Терешко́ва)
Tereshkova, whose birthday was March 6, 1937, was chosen out of over 400 applicants to pilot Vostok 6 in 1963, and became the first woman in space. Women You Should Know shares this quote from her on the experience:
“The pressure pushes me in the chair, shuts my eyes. I notice the dark red tongues of the flame outside the windows. I’m trying to memorize, fix all the feelings, the peculiarities of this descending, to tell those, who will be conquering space after me.”
Thank you to these women who took risks — social, political, personal, and physical, to earn women their rightful place in the cockpit. Hats off to all the women in the past, present and future who take to the skies. For an extra smile, enjoy this video of 92-year-old Air Transport Auxiliary Veteran Joy Lofthouse flying a Spitfire 70 years after WWII ended.
Julia Travers is a writer and artist. Her writing portfolio is here and she runs the artist interview site 5 Questions for the Artist
Love what you read? Want to follow us closer to get all the latest Legendary Women news? Then sign up for our monthly newsletter and also our Medium collection
Legendary Women, Inc. doesn’t own or profit from the images above and has credited them and quotes.
