Flying With America’s Most Famous Female Aviators

Who is the guy in the photo with Jacqueline Cochran? I'm assuming, since she was the first woman to break Mach 1, that it's the first guy to do it, Chuck Yeager. Would have been nice to identify that in the caption, if it's true.

It is indeed Chuck Yeager. He and Cochran were friends. Fast company.

You write: "The next year she became the first woman to fly solo across the English Channel, just three years after Louis Blériot first accomplished that feat."

This sentence is incorrect, because it inherently defines Bleriot's feat as being the first woman to fly solo over the English Channel. I'm guessing Louis Bleriot is a man, therefore the sentence makes no sense. If Bleriot is a woman, it still makes no sense because then Quimby wouldn't have been the first woman to do it.

Best,
Chance

I don't see the name of Cornelia Fort from Tennessee

I was disapointed to see that you did not include Katherine Cheung among your illustrious female aviators. In the 1930s she was known as the Chinese Amelia Earhart and was a member of Earhart's Ninety-Nine Club.

You left out the first person to fly east to west over the Atlantic ocean, Beryl Markham.

Would like to have seen the Dietrich Twins mentioned - they won many Powder Puff Derby races and were quite well known in the 50s.

Shame on Patricia Trenner and your editors for letting a grammatical blooper slip past! "...each has their own groundbreaking story to tell"...? This is entirely too carelessly common, but in this story, where "her" is logical, there's even less excuse for the lack of pronoun/antecedent agreement.

Sorry to nit-pick, but I found it jarring.

Ruth Moser

Chance wrote: "This sentence is incorrect, because it inherently defines Bleriot's feat as being the first woman to fly solo over the English Channel."

Disagree. "That feat" clearly refers to "fly[ing] solo over the English Channel." You're straining to find an error where there is none.

Thanks Ms Trenne for the clip on Willa Brown. She was a great person! David E. Brown nephew

I have three daughters and no sons (all my fault genetically; two are happily married, the third has just been divorced by her man as he was messing around with another woman who, like her, had borne two children). Understandably, I have always had a special interest in achievements by women. Hence my interest in this item, which was most informative. Moreover, years ago I knew two women who had ferried warplanes across the Atlantic to Britain during WWII. One never hears anything about them, any more than about black pilots or Japanese infantrymen during this same war. One other instance of this sort: We learned recently of an American male who taught his wife how to play golf. (She wished to accompany him on some of the many time he played the game.) She defeated him once. They never played together again. Are males so insecure that they cannot recognize that those who possess Adam's rib, or "slant eyes," are equally human and just as capable as they?

Hey PT. You're welcome to disagree, but I'm right. Nothing is clear unless it is written clearly. If it had been a missing apostrophe or comma, I would have never posted anything. It happens. The error I pointed out was really slathered in weaksauce, and shows there was barely an editor to this puff piece.

best,
Chance

I am now 86 years old and am having great fun writing my memoirs. My most vivid memory was when in my 20's in Chicago Il. when, during WW2, there was the Civil Air Patrol that we could join. Soon I was connected to (1) required "ground lessons" Upon passing this exam, I paid for my "maiden flight" at an airport on the outskirts of Chicago. I remember that once I got up in the sky my instincts called upon me to keep going onward and onward. Quickly, however, the ground instructor ran around the field waving me to come back. Never could afford more flying but my memoirs keep me "up there" with great pleasure. Even now, in my senior building, I have a picture of the Piper Cub similar to the one I flew and I never tire telling those who will listen, my story.