women in flight gear ww2

[dinomartino1]

Katherine Cheung earned her pilot's license in 1932, making her the first female Asian-American to do so. She would go on to perform in aerobatics shows in California, join the Ninety-Nines Club, and become friends with Amelia Earhart. Katherine had dreams of setting up flying schools for women in China, but unfortunately an accident prevented this from happening. When she went to retrieve her newly purchased plane, she saw it crashed in the distance. She was informed that her cousin, who had originally inspired her interest in flying, had taken it on a test flight, crashed it, and died. This and the death of Amelia Earhart led Katherine to give up flying.

 

[dinomartino1]

Aviation pioneer Neta Snook Southern was born in the city of Mount Carroll Illinois, in 1896. While best known for teaching Amelia Earhart how to fly, Southern also left behind a legacy of several other noteworthy aviation achievements.
Southern, who was called “Snooky” by her friends, became the first woman to enroll as a student at Glenn Curtiss’s flying school at the Atlantic Coast Aeronautical Station in Newport News, Virginia. She eventually received her pilot’s license and made her way to California.

In 1920, Southern found work as a flight instructor at the newly constructed Kinner Field airport in Los Angeles. She was also placed in charge of the facility’s operations, making her the first woman to run a commercial airfield. It was during her time at the airfield that she first met Earhart and gave her flying lessons. After a few initially rough sessions in the sky, Southern managed to teach her student how to effectively handle a plane. The two became good friends and remained close until Earhart’s still-mysterious disappearance on a flight in 1937.

Southern also tested planes for industrialist Donald W. Douglas, Sr., who was developing prototypes of what became his company’s pioneering and influential aircraft. Southern was in her 80s when she undertook her final flight, piloting a replica of Charles Lindbergh’s plane Spirit of St. Louis in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1991, she died at her home in the town of Los Gatos, California, at the age of 95.

 

[dinomartino1]

WASP Hazel Ying Lee broke barriers by becoming the first female Chinese-American pilot to fly for the military during World War II.
She was killed ferrying a Kingcobra in 1944.
Soon afterward, her family learned that her brother, Victor, had been killed in combat in France, where he was serving in a tank with the U.S. army.
When the family prepared to bury them alongside each other in a Portland Oregon cemetery they were told that Asians were not permitted in the white section, the cemetery relented only after a fight.
Though they flew under military command, the women were classified as civilians and received no military benefits.
Another former pilot, Jean Harman, remembers the women taking up donations when one of their roommates was killed.

"They didn't even pay for our funerals," she said. "We had to pass the hat to ship her body home."

 

[dinomartino1]

Matilde E. Moisant, the second American woman to get a pilot’s license, 1912

 

[dinomartino1]

Jean Gardner Batten, CBE, OSC (15 September 1909 – 22 November 1982) was a New Zealand aviatrix. Born in Rotorua, she became the best-known New Zealander of the 1930s, internationally, by making a number of record-breaking solo flights across the world. She made the first-ever solo flight from England to New Zealand in 1936.

 

[dinomartino1]

The compass she used on her flight to england

 

[Ken at Aero Leather]

Two stunning garments on this page, my favourite is the Man's coat worn by Neta Snook Southern, RFC or Private Purchase Burberry I'd have thought

The other is the Suede Jacket with the striped knit worn by Jean Batten. I have had the identical jacket since around 1970, it's British, I forget the maker but it's circa early 30s.
It's been on Aero's "Recreate" list for decades. We made two replicas a few years ago but both were stolen in the raid two years ago.
I have all the correct knit up here but the original jacket is still in the factory, it's being send up today so I can make another replica.
It's been in my possession longer than any other jacket I currently own, it's still (just about) wearable but sadly not in as good nick as it was when I got in my youth

Incidentally, I've never seen another in all those years

PS on Neta's Coat, scrub RFC, I've just spotted the checked liner

 

[Ken at Aero Leather]

 

[dinomartino1]

View attachment 19277

What a fantastic label, for anybody who does not know 'adastra' ad astra is latin for "to the stars.
Tha RAF motto is Per ardua ad astra "through adversity to the stars or "through struggle to the stars.

 

[dinomartino1]

Winifred Evelyn Spooner (11 September 1900 – 13 January 1933), was an English aviator of the 1920s and 1930s, and the winner of the Harmon Trophy as the world's outstanding female aviator of 1929.

In July 1928 she took the 3rd place in the seventh King's Cup Race and won the Siddeley Trophy as the first Aeroplane Club aviator to cross the line (flying DH.60 Cirrus I Moth)
In 1929 she finished fifth in the King's Cup Race, and won the Harmon Trophy as the world's outstanding female aviator. She also took 10th place in the International Tourist Plane Contests Challenge.

In 1930 she was a member of the British team at the International Tourist Plane Contest Challenge 1930 between 16 July and 8 August in Berlin, Germany, finishing the rally seventh overall in her De Havilland Gipsy Moth. She completed the whole contest on a high 4th position.In late August of the same year she was fourth in the handicapped race Giro Aereo d'Italia in Italy.

On 5 December 1930, accompanied by Captain Edwards, she set out to prove that South Africa could be reached within 5 days by flying day and night. After 16 hours while Captain Edwards was flying the aircraft and Winifred was asleep, the plane crashed into the sea off the coast of Belmonte Calabro in complete darkness. Captain Edwards could not give a reason for the plane steadily losing height without his knowledge. As Captain Edwards could not swim Winifred left him sitting on the wooden fuselage and swam ashore "6 strokes at a time". She was about 2 miles offshore. She then alerted local fishermen who set out to rescue Captain Edwards and the plane.

She participated in three out of four F.A.I – International Tourist Plane Contests – Challenge 1929, Challenge 1930, Challenge 1932, as one of only two women; being one of top contestants and taking the 10th place in 1929 and 4th place in 1930. In 1932 she occupied the 4th position after technical trials, but she decided to withdraw after a forced landing, caused by a sabotage on her fuel.

In 1931, she took the fifth place in the King's Cup Race and became the first British woman to earn her living as a private owner's personal pilot flying air racer and MP, Sir William Lindsay Everard, all over Britain, Europe, Turkey and the Middle East.

She is reported to have crashed an aircraft in Cleator Moor in Cumberland, UK. The date is unknown but the plane was taken to the Mill Yard, and Spooner is reported to have suffered no more than tattered stockings.

In January 1933 Winnie, who was never ill, caught a cold while at Ratcliffe Aerodrome, Leicestershire which rapidly worsened and she took to her bed. Pneumonia set in on the following day and the local doctor sent for a specialist from Nottingham. Unfortunately because of thick fog the specialist lost his way and the oxygen he was bringing, which might have saved her life, arrived too late. Winnie suffered a heart attack, and despite an injection of strychnine, she died on Friday 13 January. The bad luck that had dogged Winnie all her life, and which had cost her numerous trophies and earned her the nickname 'bad luck Wimpey', had followed her to the end.

In 1931 Mrs. Victor Bruce's plane "Bluebird," returned to Croydon airport Her aerial escort incl & Winifred Spooner. Bruce's 18,000 m circumterrestrial flight established a record for the longest solo flight in light aircraft.

Looks like Amy Johnson on the far left.

1925

 

[Pilot]

What a beautiful persone.,.
Seldomly found nowadays...
Thx for sharing.

 

[dinomartino1]

Hélène Boucher (was a well-known French pilot in the early 1930s, when she set several women's world speed records, including one which was also a world record for either sex. She was killed in an accident in 1934.
Hélène Boucher experienced flight at Orly and then became the first pupil at the flying school run by Henri Fabos at Mont-de-Marsan. She rapidly obtained her brevet (no. 182) aged 23, bought a de Havilland Gypsy Moth and learned to navigate and perform aerobatics. Her great ability was recognised by Michel Detroyat who advised her to focus on aerobatics, his own speciality.Their performances drew in crowds to flight shows, for example at Villacoublay and her skills gained her public transport brevet in June 1932. After attending a few aviation meetings, she sold the Moth and bought an Avro Avian, planning a flight to the Far East; in the event she got as far as Damascus and returned via North Africa, limited by financial difficulties.

In 1933 she flew with Miss Jacob in the Angers 12-hour race in one of the lowest-powered machines there, a 45 kW (60 hp) Salmson-engined Mauboussin-Zodiac 17; completing 1,645 km (1,022 mi) at an average speed of 137 km/h (85 mph) and came 14th. They were the only female team competing and received the prize of 3,000 francs set aside for an all-women team as well as 3,000 francs for position.[4] The following year, on a contract with the Caudron company and in a faster Caudron Rafale she competed again, coming second.

During 1933 and 1934 she set several world records for women, set out below; exceptionally, she held the international (male or female) record for speed over 1,000 km (621 mi) in 1934. Most of these records were flown in Renault-powered Caudron aircraft, and in June 1934 the Renault company also took her temporarily under contract in order to promote their new Viva Grand Sport.

On 30 November 1934 she died aged 26 flying a Caudron C.430 Rafale near Versailles when the machine crashed into the woods of Guyancourt.Posthumously, she was immediately made a knight of the Légion d'honneur and was the first woman to lie in state at Les Invalides, where her funeral obsequies were held.

On 2 August 1933 in a Mauboussin-Peyret Zodiac, she achieved a record height for a woman of 5,900 m (19,357 ft)

In 1934 in a Caudron C.450 she set two more records.

International speed over 1,000 km (621 mi) of 409.184 km/h (254.255 mph) on 8 August 1934 (also the Women's record over this distance) and on the same day speed over 100 km (62 mi) of 412.371 km/h (256.235 mph).
She set a woman's speed record of 445.028 km/h (276.528 mph) on 11 August

On 8 July in a Caudron Rafale, the "Light aircraft (Category 1)", speed over 1,000 km (621 mi) of 250.086 km/h (155.396 mph).

1929

In January 1933, the French pilot Helene BOUCHER in her plane. She did an air link between Paris and Saigon on her own in 1929 and set up 7 world records.

FRANCE - CIRCA 1934: Airplane Caudron-450 Renault of Helene Boucher in flight, with which she won the speed record of all classes on 1000 km, on July 1934

: Helene Boucher (1908-1934), French woman pilot, near a Caudron C 450. RV-217866.

 

[dinomartino1]

VILLACOUBLAY, FRANCE - OCTOBER 03: Aviation competition between German Vera Von Bissing and French Helene Boucher at a meeting of aerial acrobatics on October 3, 1933 in Villacoublay, France.

 

[dinomartino1]

 

[dinomartino1]

 

[dinomartino1]

Helene Boucher and Liesel Bach, 1934. The French pilot Helene Boucher welcomes her German colleague Liesel Bach at the arrival on the airport Le Bourget near Paris

Liesel Bach and Helene Boucher, 1935. Liesel Bach with her French pilot colleague and main competitor, Helene Boucher, after the international aviation festival of Vincennes (near Paris). The German stunt pilot Bach won the prize for best stunt flight and thus beat Bouchner

shortly before her fatal crash

 

[dinomartino1]

 

[Pilot]

Madame Princese Hélène...Thx for sharing all these emotions.
Merci de notre vielle France.
Thx from our old (still valueing- respecting- honoring ) France.

 

[Edward]

WASP Hazel Ying Lee broke barriers by becoming the first female Chinese-American pilot to fly for the military during World War II.
She was killed ferrying a Kingcobra in 1944.
Soon afterward, her family learned that her brother, Victor, had been killed in combat in France, where he was serving in a tank with the U.S. army.
When the family prepared to bury them alongside each other in a Portland Oregon cemetery they were told that Asians were not permitted in the white section, the cemetery relented only after a fight.
Though they flew under military command, the women were classified as civilians and received no military benefits.
Another former pilot, Jean Harman, remembers the women taking up donations when one of their roommates was killed.

"They didn't even pay for our funerals," she said. "We had to pass the hat to ship her body home."

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wow so sad that these women risked and lost their lives for the cause an were still treated like second class citizens and had no recognition or military honors. Hazel Ying Lee sure was a cutie! so much respect for all of these women.

 

[dinomartino1]

Thérèse Peltier
Thérèse Peltier (1873–1926)
Nobody knows exactly what date she first flew, though it was likely sometime around September 21, 1908, soon after her arrival in Italy. She was an unlikely candidate to be the first woman to solo in the history of heavier-than-air powered flight, as Thérèse Peltier was a French sculptress from Paris. A close friend of another popular sculpture artist and itinerant aviator named Léon Delagrange, she was first photographed posing with Delagrange’s Voison boxkite at Issy-les-Moulineaux near Paris on September 17, 1908. Thereafter, the two traveled to Italy together where Delagrange did the unthinkable — on arrival at Turin, he invited her to fly in his aeroplane. In turn, she too did the unthinkable too when she graciously accepted the offer.

First Flight as a Passenger
Earlier, on July 8, 1908, Peltier and Delagrange had flown together for the first time — also in Italy during an earlier trip two months before. Soon afterward, Delagrange offered that she could accompany him in his Voison boxkite for a record-setting endurance flight — again, she agreed, and they were aloft for 30 minutes and 28 seconds. Thereafter, she traveled again south with Delagrange as he flew in exhibitions around Italy, including a flight in Rome. During this time, she wrote about her experiences for the newspapers back in France and decided that she too would learn to fly an aeroplane solo.

At the time, it was thought that Thérèse Peltier was the first woman to fly on an aeroplane, even as a passenger. Later, it was realized that in the end of May, Henri Farman had taken up another woman first, a Belgian named Mlle. P. Van Pottelsberghe while Farman was visiting in Ghent. Yet where the Belgian woman was content with her one brush with the freedom of the air, Thérèse Peltier was captured by the magic of flight. She would go on to be the first woman to fly solo in a powered, heavy-than-air aeroplane in history.

In Italy for Exhibition Flying
After her first passenger flight, Thérèse Peltier stayed with Léon Delagrange in Italy for a time. Exactly what they were doing is unclear, though it was probably a combination of a summer break to the south with the intention for Delagrange to fly a series of exhibitions. It appears to have been a relaxed trip and the late summer Italian sun and air made for a fine vacation with inspiration in the sights, the foods and the atmosphere of La Bella Italia. Yet during this time, Peltier focused time observing each flight with Delagrange. As a passenger at each exhibition, she absorbed all aspects of aeroplane control as student pilots did in those days, learning just by sharing experiences, observing and discussing the basics of control function and how the engines and propeller worked.

The First Flight
Preparing for her first solo flight was a rather haphazard set of lessons. By modern standards the sort of instruction she received would be considered little more than the blind leading the blind. Nonetheless, in those days there were no advanced programs, no sophisticated flight schools and no well-structured ground schools or standards. Put simply, one watched it, practiced it together and then, as the learning progressed, the “instructor” simply allowed the student to fly solo. Aeroplanes were daring, dangerous and often difficult. The machines were far from reliable even an experienced pilot would be surprised by the unexpected. As a result, many early aviators did not survive more than a few years before falling to some capricious fault of their machine, the engine or the winds.
For Thérèse Peltier, the date of her first solo took place as the weather cooled in mid-September. In the military square of Turin, the machine was made ready. She would take off and fly a straight line and land. As it happened, she flew 200 meters in a straight line, never rising more than 2.5 meters above the ground before she set the machine back down. Her aeroplane was Delagrange’s Voisin boxkite, a plane that carried no ailerons or wing warping. To turn, it skidded around flatly on the basis of rudder input alone. She had not yet conquered the art of steering.

Never Registered or Certified
A week after her first solo, the Italian magazine L’Illustrazione Italiana published news of her achievement. The magazine ran a brief story in their September 27, 1908, issue in its weekly, regular publication. How often the two flew thereafter is not clear, but it is likely that she flew only rarely during the following two years, both in Italy and then back in France.
Finally, on January 4, 1910, tragedy struck Léon Delagrange. While flying his new Blériot aeroplane, Delagrange suffered a fatal accident, crashing at Bordeaux. When news reached Thérèse Peltier, she was overcome with grief and abandoned aviation forever. Despite that she could have easily applied for formal certification by one of the Aero Clubs of Europe, she never did. Yet that does not diminish her achievement in any way every woman pilot since has followed her high heeled ladies boots into the skies, despite the sexist attitudes and stereotypes that claimed that women couldn’t drive, much less fly.

She was a true pioneer in every respect.