women in flight gear ww2

[dinomartino1]

 

[dinomartino1]

Elinor Smith and a National Aeronautic Association official check a barograph following an altitude record attempt, 10 March 1930

 

[dinomartino1]

 

[dinomartino1]

 

[dinomartino1]

“Miss Elinor Smith, 17 years old, waving to the crowd of thousands, just after she landed here after establishing a new women’s flight endurance record, 26 hours, 21 minutes, 32 seconds, over four hours better than that of Mrs. McPhetridge of Los Angeles. The plucky girl flew a Ballanca cabin monoplane.”

 

[dinomartino1]

The National Aeronautic Association issued Aviator Pilot Certificate No. 6906 to Elinor Smith on 14 August 1928, just before her 17th birthday. The document was signed by Orville Wright

 

[dinomartino1]

Elinor Smith with the Bellanca CH Monoplane.

 

[dinomartino1]

Elinor Smith in April 1930

 

[dinomartino1]

 

[dinomartino1]

Bobbi Trout and Elinor Smith.

 

[dinomartino1]

Elinor Smith reels in her parachute after landing on her first jump in 1929.

 

[dinomartino1]

 

[dinomartino1]

 

[dinomartino1]

Smith with the Bellanca plane in which she set an endurance record of 26 1/2 hours in the air in 1929.

 

[dinomartino1]

Pilots Elinor Smith, George Haldeman, and Amelia Earhart beside a Bellanca CH-300 Airplane. Smith set the 1929 solo endurance record for women, and Haldeman was the pilot for the first nonstop flight from New York to Cuba in 1929. Both feats were accomplished in a CH-300. Bellanca manufactured planes at their New Castle plant. It is known that Earhart visited in March 1929 and sought to buy a plane. However, in the opinion of Elinor Smith, Amelia had trouble flying it, and Bellanca refused to sell one to her.

 

[dinomartino1]

17-year-old aviatrix Elinor Smith showing aeroplane to 18-year-old golf star Helen Hicks - Fairchild Field, Farmingdale, N.Y.

 

[dinomartino1]

 

[dinomartino1]

Girl flier tries for new women's endurance record. Miss Elinor Smith, youthful aviatrix of Freeport, Long Island. Shown just before she took off from Roosevelt Field, New York, in her cabin monoplane to attempt to beat the women's endurance flight record of 22 hours 3 minutes and 12 seconds recently set by Louis McPhetredge Thaden of California. The Bellanca plane was loaded with 209 gallons which Miss Smith expects will keep her aloft for about thirty hours.

 

[dinomartino1]

UNITED STATES - APRIL 09: She Climbed Six Miles! - And that was enough to bring women's altitude record back to Elinor Smith, shown just before Roosevelt Field takeoff.

 

[dinomartino1]