The Motor Maids (motorcyclists) Meet in Kissimmee for Reunion

Over 60 Florida Motor Maids, rode from Reunion to Orlando Harley Davidson East where OHD East, is graciously hosting a lunch for the Motor Maids, Inc. The Motor Maids began in 1940.

Orlando, FL (MMD Newswire) November 3, 2009 -- www.motormaids.org : MOTOR MAIDS HOLDS YEAR END MOTORCYCLE EVENT AT REUNION RESORT, NOVEMBER 6 & 7, 2009, a cocktail party Friday night features Motor Maid Margaritas by the pool, beginning at 8PM on the 11th floor of THE GRANDE at REUNION RESORT which overlooks the fireworks display of Disney World! In the lobby of the GRANDE, there will be a SUSHI BAR, offering Sushi Specials from 6 - 8PM. Motor Maids will be mingling about all evening at the GRANDE to meet and greet each other and anyone interested in learning more about this historical organization. Motor Maids, Inc., founded in 1940, is the oldest active organization of women riders in the United States. There over 1,000 Motor Maids living in the US and Canada, Florida District has over 100 Active Motor Maids. In addition, the Florida district is home to Betty Fauls, daughter of Motor Maids co-founder, Dot Robinson. Dot passed away in 1999 at the age of 83. Betty, following the motorcycling family tradition, has been actively riding for 58 years and owns and rides her own Heritage Softail as well as her mother's former bike, a pink 1994 Harley Ultra Classic.

Read more on the 69 year old organization at www.motormaids.org and go to the history button.

Orlando Harley Davidson East, 11898 Lake Underhill Rd. Orlando, FL 32825 (407) 447-7400 hosted the luncheon on Saturday. Betty Fauls, Lisa Coons, co-District Director and Tammy Jenkins, Co-District Director, as well as over 60 Florida Motor Maids, ages 29 - 83, were on hand to meet and talk to women riders and those interested in their organization.

Membership is open to women only and the type of bike a woman rides is not important only that she rides her own bike. Harley and Indian were the prevalent bikes at the time Motor Maids was founded in 1940. Motor Maids Inc. seeks to encourage women riders, promote safe riding practices, build riding skills as well as the enjoyment of riding.

Through the use of assistant directors Lisa and Tammy are able to cover all sectors of Florida serving all women riders in Florida. Lisa, Tammy, Betty, most of the assistant directors and members will be on hand at Orlando Harley Davidson to meet interested women riders.

Here's a video about Linda Dugeau:
Pioneer and Founder of the Motor Maids of America, the oldest motorcycling organization for women in North America. Motorcycle rider and enthusiast throughout her life.

You Fly Girl's Research Library

Need information from any of the following books? Send us an emai. (Any info available from a glance through the indexes of each book is provided free. We charge $15 an hour for in-depth research).

--Private Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, FAA (1965
--Captain Gramma: Single Mom to Sky High, Nancy Welz Aldrich
--I Live to Fly, Jaqueline Auriol
--Sharpie: The Life Story of Evelyn Sharp, Nebraska's Aviatrix, Diane Ruth Armour Bartels
--Just For the Love of Flying, Betty Rowell Beatty
--Soaring Above Setbacks: The Autobiography of Janet Harmon Bragg, African-American Aviator, Janet Harmon Bragg as told to Marjorie Kriz
--Powder Puff Derby -- The Record 1947-1977, Kay Brick, editor
--East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart, Susan Butler
--Shuffleboard Pilots: The History of the Women's AIr Raid Defense in Hawai: 1941-1945, Candace A Chenowith and A. Kam Napier
--Jerrie Cobb: Solo Pilot. True Flying Adventures of One of the World's Top Pilots, Jerrie Cobb, edited by Dena Hall and Ruth Lummis
--Patterns: Tales of Flying and of Life, Bette Bach Fineman
--Mr. Piper and His Cubs, Devon Francis
--Alaska's Women Pilots: Contemporary Portraits, Jenifer Fratzke
--Contributions of Women: Aviation, Ann Genett
--Zero 3 Bravo: Solo Across America in a Small Plane, Mariana Gosnell
--Amelia Earhart's Daughters: The Wild and Glorious Story of American Women Aviatiors from World War II to the Dawn of the Space Age, Leslie Haynsworth and David Toomey
--American Women of Flight: Pilots and Pioneers, Henry M. Holden
--Her Mentor Was An Albatross: The [Auto]biography of Pioneer Pilot Harriet Quimby, Henry M. Holden
--Ladybirds: The Untold Story of Women Pilots in America, Henry M. Holden with Captain Lori Griffith
--The Powder PUff Derby of 1929: The True Story of the First Women's Cross-Country Air Race, Gene Nora Jessen
--A Field Guide to Flight: On The Aviation Trail in Dayton, Ohio, Mary Ann Johnson
--Flying Higher:The Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII, Wanda Langley
--Before Amelia: Women Pilots in the Early Days of Aviation, Eileen F. Lebow
--Race With the Wind: How Air Racing Advanced Aviation, Birch Matthews
--Night Witches: The Untold Story of Soviet Women in Combat, Bruce Myles
--For God, Country, and the Thrill of It: Women Airforce Pilots in World War II, Anne Noggle
--A Dance With Death - Soviet Airwomen in World War II, Anne Noggle
--Bessie Coleman: First Black Woman Pilot, Connie Plantz
--Shuttle: The World's First Spaceship, Robert M. Powers
--Jackie Cochran: Pilot in the Fastest Lane, Doris L. Rich
--Queen Bess: Daredevil Aviator, Doris L. Rich
--Women in Aviation: Portraits of Contemporary Women Pilots, Carolyn Russo
--Daughter of the Air: The Brief Soaring Life of Cornelia Fort, Rob Simbeck
--Tethered Mercury: A Pilot's Memoir: The Right Stuff but the Wrong Sex, Bernice Trimble Steadman with Jody M. Clark
--Flying For Her Country: The American and Soviet Women Miltary Pilots of WWII, Amy Goodpaster Strebe
--Takeoff: The Story of America's First Woman Pilot for a Major Airline, Bonnie Tiburzi
--Wings Around the World: The Exhiliariating Story of one woman's epic flight from the North Pole to the Antarctic, Polly Vacher
--Best of the National Air and Space Museum, F. Robert Van Der Linden, editor
--Blue Ribbon of the Air, Henry Serrano Villard
--Spreading My Wings: One of Britain's top women pilots tells her remarkable story from pre-war flying to breaking the sound barrier, Diana Barnato Walker
--Spitfire Women of World War II, Giles Whittel
--Rising Above It: An Autobiography, Edna Gardner Whyte with Ann L. Cooper

Friday Fiction: The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship

Every Friday, I'll post an installment of The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship. This book, written by Margaret Burnham and published in 1911, is in the public domain.

It's interesting to read for a variety of reasons, not least of which is to see the prevailing attitude toward women.

The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship
Margaret Burnham
1911

Chapter One: The Golden Butterfly

"Roy! Roy! Where are you?"

Peggy Prescott came flying down the red-brick path, a rustling newspaper clutched in her hand.

"Here I am, sis -- what's up?"

The door of a long, low shed at the farther end of the old-fashioned garden opened as a clattering sound of hammering abruptly ceased. Roy Prescott, a wavy-haired, blue-eyed lad of seventeen, or thereabouts, stood in the portal. He looked very business-like in his khaki trousers, blue shirt and rolled up sleeves. In his hand was a shiny hammer.

Peggy, quite regardless of a big, black smudge on her brother's face, threw her arms around his neck in one of her "bear hugs," while Roy, boy-like, wriggled in her clasp as best he could.

"Now, just look here, cried Peggy, quite out of breath with her own vehemence. She flourished the paper under his nose and, imitating the traditional voice of the town crier, announced:

"Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! Roy Prescott or any of the ambitious aviators -- now is your chance! Great news from the front! Third and last call!"

"You've got auctioneering, the Supreme Court and war times mixed up a bit, haven't you?" asked Roy with masculine condescension, but gazing fondly at his vivacious sister nevertheless.

Peggy made a little face and then thrust forth the paper for his examination.

"Read that, you unenthusiastic person," she demanded, "and then tell me if you don't think that Miss Margaret Prescott has good reason to feel somewhat more enthusiastic than comports with her usual dignity and well-known icy reserve - ahem!"

"Good gracious, sis!" exclaimed the boy, as he scanned the news-sheet, "why this is just what we were wishing for, isn't it? It's our chance if we can only grasp it and make good."

"We can! We will!" exclaimed Peggy, striking an attitude and holding one hand above her glossy head. "Read it out, Roy, so that Monsieur Bleriot can hear it."

M. Bleriot, a French bull-dog, who had dignifiedly followed Peggy's mad career down the path, gazed up appreciatively as Roy read out:

"Big Chance for Sky Boys!

"Ironmaster Higgins of Acotonick Offers Ten Thousand Dollars in Prizes for Flights and Planes."

"Ten thousand dollars, just think!" cried Peggy, clasping her hands one minute and the next stooping to caress M. Bleriot. "Oh, Roy, do you think we could?"

"Could what? you indefinite person?" parried Roy, although his eyes were dancing and he knew well enough what his vivacious sister was driving at.

"Could win that ten thousand dollars, of course, you goose."

Roy laughed.

"It's not all offered in a lump sum," he rejoined. "Lisen, there is a large first prize of five thousand dollars for the boy under eighteen who makes the longest sustained flight in a plane of his own construction--with the excception of the engine, that is; and here's another of two thousand five hundred dollars to the glider making the best and longest sustained flight, and another of one thousand five hundred to the boy flying the most carefully constructed machine and the one bearing the most ingenious devices for perfecting the art of flying and -- and--oh listen, Peggy!"

"I am--oh, I am," breathed Peggy with half assumed breathlessness.

"There's a prize offered for girls!"

"No!"

"Yes. Now don't say an more that girls are downtrodden and neglected by the bright minds of the day. Here it is, all in black and white, a prize of a whole thousand dollars to the young lady who makes a successful flight. There, what do you think of that?"

"That Mr. Higgins is a mean old thing," pouted Peggy, "five thousand dollars to the successful boy and only one thousand dollars to the successful girl. It's discrimination, that's what it is. Don't you read every day in the papers about girls and women making almost as good flights as the men? Didn't a --Mademoiselle somebody -or-other make a flight round the bell tower at Bruges the other day, and hasn't Coloel Roosevelt's daughter been up in one, and isn't there a regular school for woemn fliers at Washington, and--and--?"

"Didn't the suffragettes promise to drop 'Vote for Women' placards from the air upon the devoted heads of the British Parliament, you uo-to-date young person?" finished Roy, teasingly.

Peggy made a dash for him but the boy dodged into the shed, closely followed by his sister.

Inspirational Women Aviatior Videos at YouTube

I've been going through the aviation videos on YouTube, working on an article for my webzine You Fly Girl, also known as Winged Victory: Women in Aviation), and found the following videos which I share here.

Warning - some of them have short commercials before the actual video starts.

Girls With Wings - Reality Based Series


Major Jennifer Grieves made history by becoming the first female pilot of Marine One, the presidential helicopter


Woman pilots Apache helicopter


Captain Andrea Ourada, a Minnesota National Guard Blackhawk helicopter pilot, tells the story of her first combat action in Iraq.


Pakistani women pilots make transition to fighter planes

Writer looking for ATA girls (WWII) and their descendants

Received a request from an author who asked me to post the following:

Yona Zeldis McDonough (pmcdonough1@nyc.rr.com) (I do not hotlink the email, so as to prevent spammers from grabbing it!)

I am a New York-based writer researching an article for a magazine about the ATA Girls. I am looking for their descendants, whom I hope to interview. I would like to hear wartime accounts, stories, anecdotes, memories--anything that would make that time and the exploits of those brave women come alive for contemporary readers. I am also interested in photographs and/or any other memorabilia. The interviews could be conducted over the phone or via e-mail.

Many thanks for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Yona Zeldis McDonough (Mrs.)

Two sisters flew in the ATA

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1219834/The-sisters-fly-Spitfires-WWII-reunited-iconic-aircraft.html

They were sleek, beautifully shaped, and earned something of a racy reputation.
And that was just the Spitfires they flew.
But even away from the cockpit, the plucky young gals of the World War Two Air Transport Auxiliary turned plenty of heads as well.

In their hastily adapted uniforms (one even had her jacket tailored in Savile Row) they became the darlings of the air – and the unsung heroines of the Battle of Britain.

Joy Lofthouse, 86, and Yvonne MacDonald, 88, joined the ATA in 1943 after spotting an advert in a flying magazine.

(Take a look at the photo in the article link above. Each of these women look like their 70, max!)

Titan Aircraft Factory Tour

Went on the Titan Aircraft Factory Tour today. Pretty interesting. Of course I forgot to bring the appropriate cable for my camera, so can't download photos until I return home in a couple of days.

And while I and about 20 other people got the complete tour of the factory, I didn't get to go to the Airport to see an actual completed T-51 Mustang (3/4 size). Little bit of a mix-up there, into which I will not go. Suffice it to say that next time I have to follow someone to get to a specific location, I'll follow the bloody owner of the aircraft factory and not some schmuck who thinks they know where the airport is but doesn't really know!