Here is a video I've put together of the Powder Puff Derby, held from 1947 yo 1977,
(For my Kindle readers, you'll have to go via your computer to YouTube to watch it.
Although the Derby started small in 1947 - only 2 planes and 3 pilots, by the end of its 30 year run they were averaging 70 planes and over 150 pilots. (The race ended in 1977, only to be replaced in 1978 by the Air Race Classic, another all woman transcontinental air race, which has been going non-stop ever since. How long it will continue, of course, depends on just how concerted an effort the government is going to mount to destroy general aviation in the future!)
Most pilots will be known only to the pilots among you - Fran Bera, Margaret Ringenberg, Pauline Glasson and so on. One pilot, in 1970, was an actress, Susan Oliver (most famous today as the Orion slave girl in the Star Trek episode, "The Cage." Oliver had started flying in 1966, flew the Atlantic solo in 1967, and wrote a book about her adventures.
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