Women Who Fly

Portraits of female pilots

  • By Rebecca Maksel
  • AirSpaceMag.com, December 19, 2008
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Comments (5)

It was a great thing the WASPS did during WWII. I was a teenager when Germany and Japan surrendered and remember the great things they did!

Today, not in my Air Force career, women are flying again. This time in combat. Women C-130E crews are flying in Iraq and all the world. When I was flying C-130s I often told my wife "If you want to know where I am just read the headlines in the newspaper." These dedicated ladies are world travelers, just as we were in the 1960s and 1970s, often flying the same C-130 aircraft we flew.

Little has been said about their dedication and valor.
Their stories should be told in depth for posterity.

The women never got the respect for what they done during WW-2. I flew with the RAF when I was 13 years old front gunner in a Wellington Bomber on Atlantic Patrol. I was in the Air Training Corps. We had completed all our training including gunnery and were allowed to fly relatively safe missions when we were out of school in the Summer. Just immagine the thrill at 13 of being behind a pair or .05 twin Browning machine guns in a rotating turret.
We never did see a u-boat, but they were out there.

Years later when I had come to America in my mid 20's I learned to fly and wound up with a Commercial Multi Engine certificate # 1416814.

My greatest pleasure was flying my Luscombe 8A alone at night.

I want say I am very glad we had women like you flying.Great job. I am 72 years old and retired air force and was in the maintenance area of aircraft.

Miss Wanda Brodowich was Winnipeg's first woman pilot,

and the first woman in Canada to get a commercial pilot's licence.

I found this small, old, aviation poster in a folder w/ a bunch of graphics from 1900-1933. There are two women pilots in it and i'd love to find out more about them and what this poster is commemorating. Can you guide me to where i might research it more?




here's pictures of it:



http://flic.kr/s/aHsjzSNzgZ

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