Female Fliers

Amid the current tendency to rewrite history, it’s important to remember that some of the earliest pilots were women. Even before the WASPs of WWII, women were taking to the skies, flying rickety planes with open cockpits.

Everyone has heard of Amelia Earhart, but she wasn’t the only woman to fly in the early days of flight.

1929 saw the “National Women’s Air Derby,” a flying race that went from Santa Monica, California to Cleveland, Ohio.

Yes, Amelia Earhart was in the competition (although she didn’t win), but so were scores of other women. Soon after, The Ninety-Nines were founded, a flying club that boasts thousands of women fliers today.