Amelia Mary Earhart was an American aviation pioneer. On July 2, 1937, Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the world. During her life, Earhart embraced celebrity culture and women's rights, and since her disappearance, she has become a cultural icon. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean and she set many other records; she was one of the first aviators to promote commercial air travel, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.
Jacqueline Cochran was an American pilot and business executive. She pioneered women's aviation as one of the most prominent racing pilots of her generation. She set numerous records and was the first woman to break the sound barrier on 18 May 1953. Cochran was the wartime head of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) (1943–1944), which employed about 1000 civilian American women in a non-combat role to ferry planes from factories to port cities. Cochran was later a sponsor of the Mercury 13 women astronaut program.
Elizabeth Muriel Gregory MacGill, known as the "Queen of the Hurricanes", was a Canadian engineer. She was chief aeronautical engineer at Canadian Car and Foundry (CC&F) in Fort William, Ontario during the Second World War. There she oversaw manufacturing of 1,451 Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft for the Royal Canadian Air Force and the British Royal Air Force, then 835 Curtiss Helldivers for the U.S. Navy, which contributed greatly to the war effort and did much to make Canada a powerhouse of aircraft manufacturing. After her work at CC&F, she ran a successful aeronautical engineering consulting business. Between 1967 and 1970, she was a Commissioner on the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada, which published a report in 1970.
Iris Louise McPhetridge Thaden was an American aviation pioneer, holder of numerous aviation records, and the first woman to win the Bendix trophy, alongside Blanche Noyes. She was inducted into the Arkansas Aviation Historical Society's Hall of Fame in 1980.
The Ninety-Nines: International Organization of Women Pilots, also known as The 99s, is an international organization that provides networking, mentoring, and flight scholarship opportunities to recreational and professional female pilots. Founded in 1929, the Ninety-Nines has 153 chapters and 27 regional 'sections' across the globe as of 2022, including a 'virtual' chapter, Ambassador 99s, which meets online for those who are too busy or mobile to be in one region for long.
Geraldine "Jerrie" Fredritz Mock was an American pilot and the first woman to fly solo around the world. She flew a single engine Cessna 180 christened the Spirit of Columbus and nicknamed "Charlie." The trip began March 19, 1964, in Columbus, Ohio, and ended April 17, 1964, in Columbus, Ohio. It took 29 days, 11 hours and 59 minutes, with 21 stopovers and almost 22,860 miles (36,790 km). The flight was part of a "race" that developed between Jerrie Mock and Joan Merriam Smith who had flown from a field near San Francisco, CA on March 17, 1964; Smith's departure date and flight path was the same as the aviator Amelia Earhart's last flight. Although they were not in direct competition with each other, media coverage soon began tracking the progress of each pilot, fascinated with who would complete the journey first. Mock was the first to finish. The story of this race is told in a book written by Taylor Phillips entitled, Queen of the Clouds; Joan Merriam Smith and Jerrie Mock's Epic Quest to Become the First Woman to Fly Solo Around the World (2023). Jerrie Mock was subsequently awarded the Louis Blériot medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in 1965. In 1970 she published the story of her round-the-world flight in the book Three-Eight Charlie. While that book is now out of print, a 50th anniversary edition was later published including maps, weather charts and photos. Three-Eight Charlie is a reference to the call sign, N1538C, of the Cessna 180 Skywagon Mock used to fly around the world. Before her death, Mock, mother of three children, resided in Quincy, Florida; northwest of the state capital, Tallahassee.
North Carolina State University was founded by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1887 as a land-grant college under the name North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. As a land-grant college, NC State would provide a "liberal and practical education" while focusing on military tactics, agriculture and the mechanical arts without excluding classical studies. Since its founding, the university has maintained these objectives while building on them.
Ruth Rowland Nichols was an American aviation pioneer. She is the only woman yet to hold simultaneous world records for speed, altitude, and distance for a female pilot.
Mary Anita "Neta" Snook Southern was a pioneer aviator who achieved a long list of firsts. She was the first woman aviator in Iowa, first woman student accepted at the Curtiss Flying School in Virginia, first woman aviator to run her own aviation business and first woman to run a commercial airfield. Yet "Snooky", as her friends called her, was fated to be remembered for her relationship to Amelia Earhart. Her autobiography I Taught Amelia to Fly captures the essence of her fame and she is linked to Earhart, as her first instructor.
Ann Dearing Holtgren Pellegreno is a professional musician, teacher, author, and lecturer. In 1967, Pellegreno and a crew of three successfully flew the same type aircraft, Lockheed 10 Electra, to complete a world flight that closely mirrored Amelia Earhart's flight plan in 1937. On the 30th anniversary of Earhart's disappearance, Pellegreno dropped a wreath in her honor on tiny Howland Island and returned to Oakland, California, completing the 28,000-mile commemorative flight on July 7, 1967.
Eugene Luther "Gene" Vidal was an American commercial aviation pioneer, New Deal official, inventor, and athlete. For eight years, from 1929 to 1937, he worked closely with Amelia Earhart in a number of aviation-related enterprises, and was President Franklin Roosevelt's top civil aviation director from 1933 to 1937.
Barbara Crawford Johnson was an American aeronautical engineer. She was the one woman in NASA's engineering team that participated in arrival on the Moon. She conducted significant and important studies on flight dynamics, missile design, wind tunnels, performance analysis, and aerodynamics. In 1968, she was appointed the highest position ever achieved by a woman in her department: manager of the Apollo Program.
Yvonne Madelaine Brill was a Canadian American rocket and jet propulsion engineer. She is responsible for inventing the Electrothermal Hydrazine Thruster (EHT/Resistojet), a fuel-efficient rocket thruster that keeps today’s satellites in orbit, and holds a patent for its invention. During her career she was involved in a broad range of national space programs in the United States, including NASA and the International Maritime Satellite Organization.
Christine Darden is an American mathematician, data analyst, and aeronautical engineer who devoted much of her 40-year career in aerodynamics at NASA to researching supersonic flight and sonic booms. She had an M.S. in mathematics and had been teaching at Virginia State University before starting to work at the Langley Research Center in 1967. She earned a Ph.D. in engineering at George Washington University in 1983 and has published numerous articles in her field. She was the first African-American woman at NASA's Langley Research Center to be promoted to the Senior Executive Service, the top rank in the federal civil service.
Doris Estella (Rhoads) Lockness was a pioneering American aviator. Two of her sons, Dave Rhodes and Ron Rhoads were Olympic cyclists.
Noël Bakhtian is the former director of the Berkeley Lab Energy Storage Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She has served as the director of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies at Idaho National Laboratory and as a senior policy advisor for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Wendy A. Okolo is a Nigerian aerospace research engineer in the Intelligent Systems Division at NASA Ames Research Center. She is the first Black woman to obtain a Ph.D. degree in aerospace engineering from University of Texas at Arlington. She is also the Special Emphasis Programs Manager for Women at Ames.
Nelda Lee was a Boeing design and flight test engineer. Lee was the first woman to log one and a half hours of flight time in the F-15 eagle. She has been “recognized as a trailblazer in aerospace engineering and aviation”.
Ying Chu Lin (Susan) Wu was a Chinese-born American businesswoman and engineer in magnetohydrodynamics, aeronautics, and aerospace engineering.
Isabel Caroline Ebel aka Isabel Caroline Hines was an American who was the first woman student at MIT and NYU studying aeronautical engineering.
