Page:The Fun of It.pdf/216



EHIND modern women pilots stand another group who are the real pioneers. While comparatively few in number they must have had plenty of what my grandmother called “spirit”. Their era was mostly from 1910 to 1919. Since then I believe all have abandoned any active flying, save one, perhaps, who keeps a cur­rent Department of Commerce license.

History seems to be running backward in this rambling account of mine. In the midst of going from the modern woman flyer to the decade before, I recall that there are still others who hopped into the air long before those I am now calling pioneers. I’ll retreat a hundred years or more to the very, very first “Lady Aeronauts.”

Although she never flew herself, I doubt if any American woman had a larger hand in making flying a fact than Katherine Wright, the sister of Orville and Wilbur Wright.

The first flight of heavier than air craft was car­ried out December 17, 1903, at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. The little machine used weighed 750 pounds and had a twelve horse power engine. IfIt [sic] flew 852 feet in one minute. Wilbur Wright was the pilot and Orville his alter ego on the ground.

As acclaim for the achievement began to roll in