This Day in Women's Aviation
Today is Thursday, July 29, 2010 6:13 AM
1932 - Famed British flyer Amy Johnson married another record-breaking flyer, Scotsman Jim Mollison. The couple met while Amy was on a cross-country tour of Australia, having just become the first woman to fly there from England. Mollison proposed to Amy within a week of meeting her. The two would divorce, and then remarry 20 years later.
1936 - The second World Aerobatic Championships took place in conjunction with the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Among the events were several all-female aerobatic contests, including a Coupe Feminin won by German Liesel Bach, and a special women's event at the Olympic Celebration Competition that was won by another German, Vera von Bissing.
1941 - The U.S. War Department issued a survey to all women licensed pilots to determine the feasibility of forming an auxiliary organization of women pilots to ferry certain categories of airplanes. The survey asked, "Would you be interested in joining an organization which is government sponsored at a salary not less than $150 per month to start?"
1943 - WASP Barbara (BJ) Erickson left Long Beach, California to deliver a P-51 Mustang to Evansville, Indiana. Over the next 10 days, she would fly 8,000 miles in four different aircraft, piling up an estimated 40 flight hours--as much as one of the 2nd Ferrying Group WASP could have hoped for in a full month. Her prolific flying would earn her the only Air Medal awarded to a WASP member during World War II.
|