The Ninety Nines

11 Pages 2821 Words

The Aviation world, as with numerous other aspects of the world, has many various “firsts”. For example the first to fly and airplane: Orville Wright. The first Jet flight: Robert Stanley. The first to fly Mach 1: Charles “Chuck” Yeager. Leonardo Da Vinci (coincidently the first aviation enthusiast) said it best when he stated that, “Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.” Unfortunately the birth of aviation did not come at a time when it was appropriate for a woman to fly a plane (therefore never knowing flight), so in turn most of the very significant “firsts” had already been claimed by men. When the first woman got to “know” a plane it was not something that she “hated” but “loved”. But something that she and many other pilots would come to know and have an immense amount of love and devotion for, despite sabotage, ridicule, hard work, and all while maintaining the composure and duties of a lady. Leading to one firsts that could only be claimed by women: The first club, support group, and educational organization for women all in one: The Ninety-Nines. Throughout history the Ninety-Nines play a lead role in the encouragement, recruitment, and support of women in aviation. Many of the firsts and the accomplishments that were made, and that are still being made today by women, were or are members of the Ninety-Nines. From the first women’s air derbies, to the Amelia Earhart scholarship of today, the Ninety-Nines has been through the thick and the thin, from the start to right now.
Women’s desire to wander the skies goes back long before the days of Orville and Wilbur Wright. The first recorded flight for women was in 1784. Elisabeth Thible was the first woman to fly a hot air balloon. It was not until 1798, nearly a decade and a half later, when hot air balloons were deemed airworthy and safe enough for a woman to make her first balloon solo. Jeanne Labrosse was the first wom...