FlyZolo Team Update - Day 16
Whilst Zara Rutherford is hoping to inspire girls and young women to follow their dreams and reach for the sky, let's talk about the "National Women's Air Derby", also known as the "Powder Puff Derby".
More than 80 years ago, in 1929, 20 women took to the skies in a women's only Air Race. The race took 9 days from Santa Monica, California to Cleveland, Ohio, where 15 women arrived. One of them was Amelia Earhart.
The planes had none of the safety features of airplanes today: very few to no instruments, no gps, no lights. House keys were sometimes hung in the cockpit to see where was up and where was down. During the race, Marvel Crosson crashed in the Gila River Valley and was killed. There was a public outcry demanding the race be canceled, but the pilots got together and decided the most fitting tribute would be to finish the derby.
Blanche Noyes had to put out a fire that erupted in mid-air over Pecos, but continued on. Margaret Perry caught typhoid fever. Pancho Barnes crashed into a car that drove onto the runway as she was trying to land, wrecking her airplane. Ruth Nichols also crashed. Claire Fahy's wing wires were eaten through, possibly sabotaged with acid; she withdrew from the race.
The women not only had to have great piloting skills, they also needed to be accomplished mechanics to keep their planes flying.
By the time they arrived in Cleveland, an estimated 18,000 people had gathered to greet the pilots at the end of the race.

Watch an amazing excerpt of Heather Taylor's 2010 documentary "Breaking Through The Clouds: The First Women's National Air Derby", here: https://ecs.page.link/xnoCn

And listen to an amazing podcast about the Air Race here: AirSpace Ep.11:The Ninety-Nines https://ecs.page.link/ZVwkg

#GirlsInStem #womenpilots #chicksfly #99s #WomenEngineers #aviatrix #aviationdaily #pilotlife #aviationlovers #worldrecord #aroundtheworld #ameliaearhart #equalopportunity #Seeitbeit #makewhatsnext #ZaraRutherford #flyingsolo #femalepilots #womenpilots #GuinnesWorldRecord #CloseTheDreamGap #flyingsolo #femalepilots #womenpilots #Girlpilots The Ninety-Nines, Inc.®, International Organization of Women Pilots