Women Who Fly
Portraits of female pilots
- By Rebecca Maksel
- AirSpaceMag.com, December 19, 2008
Carolyn Russo
Madge Rutherford Minton, Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP)
Standing in her living room with objects she has collected from around the world. Indianapolis, Indiana, 1995.
“My parents were always saying, ‘Control yourself, Madge, control yourself.’ The first really strong wish as to the future came to me the first time I saw an airplane. I was sitting on the curb eating a piece of my grandmother’s pie and this little plane was up maybe a couple or three thousand feet. It looked like a toy. I went in and I said, ‘Mother, there’s something up there and I want you to get it for me so I can play with it.’…
I guess aviation sort of became part of my subconscious. I was a student in college and I signed up for this civilian pilot training program and I was accepted, and my very first time in an airplane was my first flight lesson….
In January of 1943, I had a telegram asking me if I was interested in being a WASP, and that’s the way it began. I was twenty-two years old, and had to report to Sweetwater, Texas, to the Avenger Air Field, for training….
I said I wanted to be in the Air Transport Command ferrying division. I would like to ferry hot planes and big planes, and I wanted to be assigned to Long Beach, California, because my fiancé was stationed at the naval hospital in San Diego….
I would have flown combat. I think this is the reason I’ve been so sympathetic to the contemporary women pilots about their problems. During that period of time, it was exactly the same point of justice I fought for in college. If they wanted to do it, let them do it. They earned it. I think women should have that privilege.”
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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.
Posted by Lt.Col. Robert W. Ruffin Ret. on January 1,2009 | 01:49 PM
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.
Posted by Robert A. Harbinson on February 19,2009 | 10:25 PM
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.
Posted by charles cummings on December 16,2009 | 10:52 AM
Miss Wanda Brodowich was Winnipeg's first woman pilot,
and the first woman in Canada to get a commercial pilot's licence.
Posted by Edward T.Dolski on March 25,2010 | 01:47 PM
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
Posted by Pete Veilleux on July 4,2012 | 02:52 PM