Women Who Fly
Portraits of female pilots
- By Rebecca Maksel
- AirSpaceMag.com, December 19, 2008
Carolyn Russo
Patricia Jenkins, Helicopter Pilot
On her cattle ranch property with her Hughes 300 helicopter named Woodstock in the background. Diamond, Oregon, 1995.
“Our cattle hear this helicopter overhead so often that they just kind of glance around and ‘Oh, it’s just her again.’ They don’t run out of just sheer fright. Other people’s cattle do. That’s how I know when I have other people’s cattle, and it makes it a lot easier to get them separated, because the others just take off in a dead run like a spilled bag of marbles….
Five years into the marriage, my husband decided he wanted to learn to fly, and I said, ‘Well, if you’re going to learn, I’d better learn, too.’ So we traded beef for flying lessons. I was raising children and doing ‘housewifely’ things and hated it. I was bored to death. So the airplane was a good brainteaser for me. The flying was just what I needed. I could finally do something. I hadn’t finished school and I don’t have a degree. So flying was the next best thing that I could do and feel okay about myself living out here….
The minute I [take off], I don’t get altitude, I have to stay close to the ground all the time, because my job is observation. I have to be sure fences are up, the wires are on all the fences, the gates are closed or open as they’re supposed to be. Almost all my work is done very close to the ground. I’d say ten, twenty feet. I have to do visual observation of my cattle, making sure what they look like, if they’re thin or comfortable, if they look lost or if they’re in the wrong fields….
So with the helicopter, I can go out and check the cattle in the morning…then I’m back in the machine in the afternoon, and can do the fencing or move cattle or whatever is needed to be done.”
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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