offensive remarks-
Okay guys, let me first set out my credentials. I am NOT an "aviatrix", I am a pilot. Been flying since 1983; with 1,400 hours power and an IR, and tug pilot; and 1,800 hours in gliders, flying as an instructor and in competition, and managed to achieve 3 diamonds in a Single Seat pegasus glider (nobody hiding in there!), with a distance of 511 kilometers, staying airborne and finishing the task in 8 hours and 53 minutes. And in Scotland, the gain of height from low point of 20,300 feet. Try that without an engine, you numpties!
For B. Fraser to call attention to women posessing a pair of ovaries is in very poor taste. Does he flaunt his equipment to prove his gender? I would be happy to see that thoughtless remark eliminated.
I have included a brief history of six amazing women.
Sophie Blanchard had to carry on flying her husband's hydrogen balloon after he died of a heart attack in Paris in 1809. She flew display solo for ten years before fireworks set fire to the hydrogen.
Harriet Quimby was the first woman to gain a US pilot's license, and the first woman to fly SOLO across the English Channel.
Amy Johnson flew SOLO (and there are photos to prove it!) in her Gypsy Moth from Croydon, leaving the 5th of May and arriving in Darwin Australia on May 24. She flew warplane deliveries for the ATA, but did not survive the war.
Ann Welch, OBE, flew routine deliveries for the ATA of Hurricanes, Spitfires, and Blenhiem Bombers. She married and raised two daughters while engaged in this service....then went on to organising the London Gliding Club, and Lasham, and also was key in building a framework for the development of flexwing personal aircraft in the UK. She died in 2002.
Marina Raskova, Antonov Record Holder, organised the Nachthexten, regiments of Soviet women pilots who were given very ancient fighter planes to fly over German camps and drop the bomb load to spoil their rest....only two very small bombs could be carried! but the invaders didn't like it
and Hanna Reitsch, the first female helicopter pilot, displayed the new heli regularly every day for three weeks at the International Auto Show, INSIDE the exhibition hall. She was also the first woman to fly jets, the ME262 and HE162. She also was the only test pilot light enough to test the V-1 rocket.
She survived the war.