women in flight gear ww2

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Girls Plan Endurance Refueling Flight. Los Angeles, California: Miss Elinor Smith (left) and Miss Bobbie Trout (right) sit in the specially built dual cockpit of their plan Sunbeam with which they hope to set a new refueling endurance flight record from the Metropolitan Airport in Los Angeles, California

 

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Bellancia plane used by Elinor Smith was forced down across the street from Mitchell Field during an altitude record flight

 

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New Castle, Delaware: George W. Haldeman, famous transatlantic flyer and chief pilot of Bellanca Aircraft Corporation, New Castle, Delaware, sets new altitude record for commercial airplanes by ascending to an indicated height of 33,500 feet in a standard Bellanca Pacemaker, powered with a Wright J-6 nine cylinder engine. Picture shows Haldeman immediately after landing and still carrying his oxygen equipment and wearing his heavy fighting clothes to withstand the cold of high altitudes. Left to right: Shirley Short, official observer for National Aeronautics Association; Elinor Smith; George Haldeman; and R.B.C. Noorduyn, General Manager of Bellanca Corporation.

 

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Pioneering American aviatrix Elinor Smith (1911 - 2010) presents the first parachute dog during a major air meet on August 7, 1932 in United States.

 

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: Miss Elinor Smith of New York, and Mrs. Bobbie Trout of Los Angeles, standing before the plane in which they will attempt to set a new world's record. The two girls formerly were air rivals but are now combining their abilities

 

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America's girl champions get together on the links..."The trick of the game is to put the ball in the hole..." or words to that effect, as Helen Hicks, 18-year-old girl golf star, started giving Elinor Smith (right), a golf lesson on the links of the Lenox Hill Golf Club at Farmingdale, N.Y. Then the 17-year-old aviatrix, who recently remained in the air for 26 hours and 21 minutes to set a new women's flight endurance record, took Helen over to Fairchild Field and gave her a lesson at the controls of a plane

 

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Left, Miss Elinor Smith of New York, and Miss Bobby Trout of this city with the radio equipment which they will take up on the first woman's refueling flight for endurance. They are all set to take off in their sunbeam plane.

 

[dinomartino1]

Airplane Refueling in Midair

Passing their 32nd hour of their endurance flight over Los Angeles, female aviators Bobbi Trout and Elinor Smith refuel in midair as they circle over the Metropolitan Airport. The total flight time of over 32 hours set the women's endurance record. | Location: Above Los Angeles, California, USA.

 

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UNITED STATES - JANUARY 01: Los Angeles, California : Anita Page make a movie of Bobby TROUT (left) and Elinor SMITH, the two famous endurance fliers just after their last unsuccessful attempt.

 

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The aviatrix Elinor Smith with her mask. About 1927

 

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The American aviatrix Elinor Smith after her record flight (9700 meters altitude). Roosevelt Field. 24th March 1930.

 

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The flight pilot Elinor Smith (left) after one of her world records. About 1930.

 

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Flying Flapper gives Helen Hicks first plane lesson. Elinor Smith, 17 year old "flying flapper" who recently set a new woman's flight endurance record of 26 hourse and 21 minutes, shown as she gave Helen kHicks her first lesson at the controls of an airplane at Fairchild Field, Farmingdale, Long Island. The two girls had just come from the Lenox hill golf Club where Helen Hicks, the 18 year old golf star, and given Elino a lesson on the golf links.

 

[Ken at Aero Leather]

Battered Horsehide, Blanket lining
All done bar the buttons It's going to look a lot better once the buttonholes and buttons are added, I'll have to send it down to Galashiels to get that done. More pics when it's finished

 

[dinomartino1]

Stunning, what a corker.
or as the the Aussies would say here, she's bloody bonzer mate.

 

[ausreenactor]

View attachment 20517
Pioneering American aviatrix Elinor Smith (1911 - 2010) presents the first parachute dog during a major air meet on August 7, 1932 in United States.

Possibly the last parachute dog? Or the last thing the dog did...

 

[dinomartino1]

Katherine Stinson
She was born on February 14, 1891, in Fort Payne, Alabama.
She was the fourth woman in the United States to obtain a pilot's certificate, which she earned on 24 July 1912, at the age of 21, while residing in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Initially, she planned to get her certificate and use money she earned from exhibition flying to pay for her music lessons. However, she found she liked flying so much that she gave up her piano career and decided to become an aviator.
In January 1911, Stinson went to St. Louis to take flight lessons from Tony Jannus who only allowed her to fly as a passenger.
She more than likely received some ground schooling and words of encouragement from Wilbur Wright himself as she is seen in his company about to refuel an aircraft in early 1912 but Wilbur died in May 1912 and before her flight training was begun or complete.
She then took flying lessons from the well-known aviator Max Lillie, a pilot for the Wright Brothers, who initially refused to teach her because she was female. But she persuaded him to give her a trial lesson. She was so good that she flew alone after only four hours of instruction.

A year after receiving her certificate, she began exhibition flying. On the exhibition circuit, she was known as the "Flying Schoolgirl." Katherine Stinson tried to tell newspaper reporters she was actually 21, not 16, but they refused to believe her.
After she received her certificate, Stinson and her family moved to San Antonio, Texas, an area with an ideal climate for flying. There she and her sister, Marjorie, began giving flying instruction at her family's aviation school in Texas. In March 1915 the famous Lincoln Beachey died in a crash at San Francisco and Stinson later acquired the rotary engine from his wrecked plane.
On July 18, 1915, Stinson became the first woman to perform a loop, at Cicero Field in Chicago, Illinois, and went on to perform this feat some 500 times without a single accident.She also was one of the first women authorized to carry airmail for the United States. During World War I, Stinson flew a Curtiss JN-4D "Jenny" and a Curtiss Stinson-Special (a single seat version of the JN aircraft built to her specifications) for fundraising tours for the American Red Cross. During exhibition flights in Canada, Stinson set Canadian distance and endurance records, and, in 1918, made the second air mail flight in Canada between Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta.

In 1916, the year Amelia Earhart graduated from high school, Stinson became the first woman to fly in the Orient. Fan clubs developed all over Japan to honor the ‘Air Queen’.
On December 11, 1917, Katherine Stinson flew 606 miles from San Diego to San Francisco, setting a new American non-stop distance record.
The Stinson School closed in 1917, and Katherine became an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in Europe.


When the United States became involved in World War I and the army asked for volunteer pilots, Stinson applied, but the military twice rejected her applications because she was a woman. Undaunted, she volunteered her services as an ambulance driver and was accepted. The combination of Europe’s cold climate and brutal wartime conditions proved, ironically, to be more injurious to her health than her career as a stunt pilot had been.When she returned from the war, she struggled to overcome tuberculosis by moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her recuperation called for a new, less frenetic life, so Stinson traded in aviation for training in architecture

In 1918, she flew non-stop from Chicago to Binghamton, New York.
In 1920, she retired from aviation.
In 1927, she married airman Miguel Antonio Otero, Jr., son of the former territorial governor of New Mexico. She worked as an architect for many years in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
She died in 1977 at the age of 86.
Stinson's flying inspired her brothers to form the Stinson Aircraft Company. All of her stunt flying was done in aircraft using the Wright control system, which uses two side-mounted levers for pitch and roll, with top mounted controls for throttle and yaw.

• An early Laird biplane looped by Stinson is on display at the Henry Ford Museum.
• A replica of her 1918 Curtiss Stinson-Special is on display at the Alberta Aviation Museum in Edmonton.

The second oldest general aviation airport in the United States, Stinson Municipal Airport (KSSF) in San Antonio, Texas, was named in the Stinson family's honor. A middle school in northwest San Antonio, TX, Katherine Stinson Middle School, was named in her honor

 

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KATHERINE STINSON (1891-1977) pioneer woman pilot in Tokyo in 1917 on her tour of Japan and China