The Ninety Nines

11 Pages 2821 Words

an to fly solo in a hot air balloon. It would not be until 1880 that the first American woman, Mary Myers would solo a balloon. Twenty-three years later, Aida de Acosta is the first woman to solo in a dirigible, in 1903 (Millbrook, 53). That same year would go down in history as the year of the first controlled and sustained power-driven flight in an airplane. Naturally men wanted to show off their new flying skills, this lead to the first passengers in airplanes. In July 1908, Leon Delagrange took a woman, Therese Peltier, for an airplane ride in France. It is no surprise or coincidence that the first women passenger to fly, would soon want to conquer the skies as well. Later in the year (1908), Therese Peltier became the first woman to solo in an airplane. In 1910 the Baroness Raymonde de Laroche obtained a pilots license from the Aero Club of France, deeming her the first woman pilot (Millbrook, 64).
Because of America’s views of women as fragile and ill equipped to fly in the early 1900’s, America’s women were always a step behind. Blanche Stuart Scott, all ready known for her cross-continental road trip in an Overland automobile, decided to take up flying as another effort to empower women. Her instructor Glen Curtiss was somewhat hesitant of teaching a woman how to fly. Curtiss feared that if a woman was injured or killed by an airplane it would devastate America, and destroy airplane business in America all together. He finally agreed to give Scott lessons, starting as all pilots did with “grass cutting”: the awkward hopping and bouncing along the ground with out enough engine power to take off. On September 2nd of 1910, without consent or knowledge of Curtiss she “accidentally” took off and landed safely with out any actual training in the air (House,13). With that Scott claimed her spot as the first woman to pilot a plane in America. This was a giant leap into aviation for the women of America. ...