IWOAW is celebrating 100 Years of Female Pilots of all Races as part of Women Of Aviation Week 2021. Headlines and photos of WWI pilots and planes captivated the attention of Bessie Coleman but a dare by one of her brothers set her pilot career aspirations in motion. “You nigger women ain’t never goin’ to fly, not like those women I saw in France,” her brother John told her in front of her clientele at …
By 1920, women had piloted all kinds of aircraft, crossed large bodies of water, flown in combat, and obtained patents for aircraft design. These women had a lot in common. They were daring, determined, resourceful and, Caucasians. That would not last. In 1918, Tadashi Hyodo became the world’s first Asian woman to take flight training at the Tsudanuma aviation school in Japan. At the time, one minute of flight cost 2 yens or 1/20 of a …
“After six or so flights in the Sabre, I figured she knew it well enough, so I took her up to 45,000 feet and told her to push her nose straight down. We dove together, wing to wing, kept it wide open and made a tremendous couple of sonic booms over Edwards. She became the first woman to fly faster than sound and forever after, she loved to brag that she and I were the …
It was 1937 when Hanna Reitsch took the controls of a Focke-Achgelis 61 helicopter and became the world’s first female helicopter pilot. In celebration, the theme for the 7th annual Women Of Aviation Worldwide Week, March 6-12, 2017, will be “Let’s whirl. 80 years of female helicopter pilots.” Introducing girls of all ages to helicopters has always been an important part of Women Of Aviation Worldwide Week. Since 2010, nearly 20% of the Week’s 30,074 …
In 1956, Brazilian Ada Rogato boarded her Cessna 140 to fly throughout the Amazon Jungle landing in newly opened forest clearings and visiting Indian villages. She was the first human being to do so. The epic trip took 163 hours of flight time. To celebrate her accomplishment, the Institute for Women Of Aviation Worldwide (iWOAW) selected “It’s a jungle out there. 60 years of female bush pilots.” as the official theme for the 6th annual …