Today’s random object from the Random Object Randomogrifier was a female pilot figurine, part of a “Women in Industry” tube from Safari.
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I couldn’t remember what else came in the set. Maybe a chef, police officer, possibly a firefighter or astronaut, but the label “female” pilot stood out. Normally I’m one of those who says we shouldn’t differentiate, a pilot is a pilot, but in this case, the label mattered.
I went down the pilot rabbit hole looking up history of female pilots. Like, in 1909, Raymonde de Laroche became the first woman to graduate flight school, even though the men didn’t want her there. There weren’t license requirements yet, but she still got certified. In 1921, Bessie Coleman became the first Black and Native American woman pilot in the U.S. by funding her training through wing walking and stunts. She wanted to start a school for other women, but died in a crash in 1926, which unfairly reinforced doubts about female and minority pilots.
Tiny Broadwick came up too. She was the first person to parachute from a plane and invented the ripcord system still in use today. Amelia Earhart wasn’t the first to fly solo across the Atlantic, that was Lindbergh. But, she was the first to do it twice! She also flew solo from Hawaii to California, which even Lindbergh said was too risky. After her plane went down, they searched but never definitively found her remains nor her plane. Some bones were found in 1940 that matched her size, but were dismissed as “man bones.” Science digest says they evaluated the bones later, and determined they very likely could be hers. But they disappeared before DNA analysis could be done. No conspiracy to see here, folks. Moving along..
Willa Brown started an integrated civilian pilot training school in 1940, the one that trained the Tuskegee Airmen. On the live stream, I couldn’t read my handwriting and thought I had written “Willy” and not her name. In 1950, Jean Ross Howard Phelan became the first pilot, not just female pilot, to land a helicopter on a glacier, helping develop naval landing techniques.
Sabiha Gökçen was the first woman fighter pilot in Turkey in the 30s. In ’74, Rosemary Mariner became the first female squadron commander in the US Navy. In the 1980s, Theresa Claiborne became the first US Air Force female pilot. And Madeline Swegle closed the list becoming a jet fighter pilot in 2020.. It took from the 1930s to 2020 to get women into tactical jets. Not from lack of ability, but because not many sign up. And that’s why we celebrate the ones who do.
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