Video of the Opening of the Fly Girls exhibit

provided by Wings Across America at YouTube:

Opening of Fly Girls, WWII at the WIMSA Memorial, 11/14/08



Pentagon channel reports on the exhibit:


WASP Sandy Thompson remembers her first days flying the B-26. Shot in 1996 at Lone Star Flight Museum

Jessica Cox, armless aviator

Just saw the news today about Jessica Cox, a 25-year old woman without arms who just got her pilot's license.

I input her into the Women Aviator wiki toot sweet!

http://www.womenaviators.org/wiki/index.php?title=Jessica_Cox

It's kind of sad. I sit here, on a daily basis, working on my computer, with the TV on next to me, on channels like Spike TV, where all these beautiful babes seem to want to do is get drunk, have sex, find a man to take care of them and get them drunk and have sex with them.

And meanwhile there's women like Jessica Cox, who want to do something with their lives, have goals to fly high and be strong, and overcome tremendous odds to do so.

You go, girl!

Wings of their Own review complete

I finished the review of Wings of Their Own, a 2004 documentary which interviewed over 200 women pilots, and you can find it here:

http://thethunderchild.com/YouFlyGirl/WingsoftheirOwnDoc/WingsDocumentary.html

Apart from the lack of captions for each person when they were talking, this is quite an inspiring doc and I encourage everyone to check it out. The producers interviewed a wide cross-section of pilots, from students to pros, talked to a few WASP and Wally Funk of the Mercury 13, and so on.

Recommended.

Time Keeps on Slippin' Into the Future...

I've been having a ton of fun inputting data into the Women Aviators Wiki and a lot of the names have been culled from the Wings of their Own documentary.

I'm about inputted out for a while, though, so now it's time to get back to work on what I should be working on, namely my own stuff for my various webzines, The Thunder Child Science Fiction webzine and Winged Victory: Women in Aviation.

To that end, I'll get started today and writing the formal review of the Wings of their Own doc, which I'll be publishing at Winged Victory. It's actually quite a good doc, and one I recommend to everyone (it'd make a nice Christmas present ; ) ) with that one glaring flaw which is the fact that most of the women aren't identified while they're speaking.

However, if you go to their website, there is a cute picture of a little girl in a monoplane holding a bunch of roses (I'm assuming the image comes from a vintage postcard), and, if you click on that image, you're taken to a list of each woman on the doc, and their photos, in order of their appearance on the doc.

This is an excellent and very much needed resource, and it is HIDDEN. IF you dont' read the text above the image, which says,
To learn more about
the Pilots in this film,
and Women in Aviation,
CLICK ON THIS PICTURE

you'd never know that info was there. And yes, that's four lines of text, but it doesn't stand out in such a way that the casual observer is going to see it!!!!

Just makes me want to spin their propellers! (I'm trying to come up with aviation-centric exclamations.)

Vi Cowden

Here's a video of WASP Vi Cowden explaining what it was like to fly during WWII.

Nancy Welz Aldrich

Nancy Aldrich was 31 years old, divorced and had 2 children. She started taking flying lessons, and after a couple of years became a pilot for United Airlines.

http://www.captaingramma.com/index.html

She's written a book, called Captain Gramma, which you can order at the link above.

See and hear how she did it.

[There's supposed to be a video in the empty space below... for some reason it's not showing up on my computer!]



I've also added her to the Women Aviators Wiki:
http://www.womenaviators.org/wiki/index.php?title=Nancy_Aldrich

If you are a pilot or know a woman pilot, please enter your data at the wiki! If you are hesitant because of a "fear of programming" don't be - it's all English language. Just create a page and type. I (or other contributors knowledgable in wikification) will go in afterwards and format it properly - you don't need to concern yourself with that if you dont' want to.

How Not to Make A Documentary.

Or Arrrrrggggghhhhhhhhhh!

I received a documentary to review, a couple of days ago, Wings of their Own, produced by Mary Scott and Abby Dress.

And they interviewed about 100 women pilots, and each of these women has a few snippets throughout the doc of how they got interested in flying, why they fly, etc. etc. A few WASP were interviewed, etc.

But, guesss what. You don't know who any of these women are!!! Not one woman is identified while she's speaking, as you'd expect.

So, as a "take charge" kind of woman, I just have to throw up my hands at this. Give me the master for this doc and let me fix it up!

Each of these women has something interesting and inspiring to say, and yet we don't know who they are!

When they show photos of old timers - like Louise Thaden, or of race winners, they identify those pilots with captions, so I know they had the ability to put captions on each person, and yet they didn't. SO frustrating.

One of the "extras" on the DVD is a photo gallery of each person who participated, and their name is given there, but I don't have the kind of memory that can look at that gallery and then put names to faces when I watch the doc.

The names of the pilots who spoke for the doc (alphebetical list below):

Doris Abbate
Gabrielle Adelman
Karen Agee
Meghan Albittain
Nancy Welz Aldrich
Dottie Anderson
Gloria Apple
Sunny Atkins
Suzanne Azar

Cheryl Baker (archival audio)
Elloise Beatty
Capt. Jenny Beatty
Joy Parker Blackwood
Lorrie Blech
Judith Bolkema-Tokar
Janet Harmon Bragg
Caroline Bryan
Chandra Sawant Budhabbhatti (India)
Susan Livingston Barre
Capt. Beverley Bass
Jenny Beatty
Trish Beckman
Linda Berlin
Janet Harmon Bragg
Galina Brok-Beltsova
Jacque Boyd

Carol Cary-Hopson
Ashley Cavert
Julie Clark
Pat Collins
Linda Cain
Marie Carastro
Susan Carastro
Linda Fritsche Castner
Jackie Cochran (archival footage)
Bessie Coleman (archival photos)
Eileen Collins (Colonel, astronaut)
Claudette Colwell
Vi Cowden
Donna Crane-Bailey
Mary Cresson

Katrina Derricote
Bobbi Doorenbos
Billie Downing
Peggy Doyle
Jennifer Drake, Lt, USN Fighter pilot
Linda Mae Draper
Martha Dunbar


Amelia Earhart (archival footage)

Charlene C. Falkenberg
Lois Feigenbaum
Phyllis Felker
Misti Flaspohler
Irene Flewellen (archival footage)
Cornelia Fort[e] (archival photo)
Carol Foy
Allie Franke
Melanie Frey-Eppard
Leah Fritsche
Carol Froehling
Marcia B. Fuller
Wally Funk

Barbara Garwood
Emily Metz Gile
Michelle Glisan
Traude Gomez (German)
Barbara Goodwin
Marjorie Gray
Amanda Gruden
Michelle Gutierrez
Susie Grundler

Jeanette Hackler
Col. Kelly Hamilton, USAF
Korina Harris
Mardell Haskins
Bee Falk Haydu
Tookie Hensley
Col. Allison Hickey, USAF
Joyce Hilchie
Lynn Holland
Anne Honer
Michelle Hovey
Betty Huck
Ernesteen Hunt
Vicky Hunt

Gretchen Jahn
Marion Jayne
Christine A. Jean-Charles
Mary Goodrich Jenson
Gene Nora Jessen (archival footage)
Bonnie Johnson
Pat Johnson
Evelyn Johnson
Jerry Anne Jurenka

Patricia Jayne Keefer
Mary Keller
Janis Keown-Blackburn
Joan Kerwin
Alberta Pashkvan Kinney
Capt Nancy Kovaes
Evelyn Kropp

Katherine Landdeck
Laura Lattanzio
Nelda Lee
Captain Mary Lee
Carol Levine
Lilya Litvyak
Ruth Logan
Judy Logue
Barbara Erickson London
Francesca Los
Nancy Love (archival footage)
Alice Lovejoy (archival photo)
Esther Lowry

Ruth Maestre
Kristen Mansel
Capt Susan Maule
Martha Miller
Nancy A. Miller
Heidi Moore
Nanette Malher
Jody McCarrell
Erin McCoy
Rosemarie McRae
Kathy McDonald
Claudia McKnight, Lt. Commander, USCG
Madeleine Monaco
Linda Meese
Patricia Minard
Donna Moore

Carolyn Van Newkirk
Erin Nolan

Beth Oliver
Candie Oldham
Phoebe Omlie (archival footage)
A. Lee Orr

Agata Pares
Mary Patterson
Barbara Harris Para
Sofia Payton
Carolyn Pilaar
Gaynor Pilkington
Pat Noyes Prentiss
Debra Price

Terry Queijo

Mikaelia Ramanan
Elena Ray
Hilda Ray
Capt Terry London Rinehart
Margaret Ringenberg
Elaine Roehrig
Mabel Rawlinson (archival footage)
Margie Richison
Stephanie Roberts
Elaine Roderic
Holly Lee Roe
Barbara Rohde
Kathleen Roy

Marina Saettone
Pam Saylor (Phillipines)
Linda Scully
Mohini Shroff
Linda Schumm
Merav Schwartz
Tamra Sheffman
Anne Shields
Ruby Wine Sheldon
Vicki Lynn Sherman
Kristin Shoemaker
Dora Davis Skinner (archival footage)
Christine Sleeper
Carolyn Smith
Jill Smith
Coralie Ann Stamp
Katherine Stinson (archival footage)
Elinor Smith (Sullivan)
Linda Soliars
Joan Steinberger
Anne Sultan, Esq.
Deborah Sutor
Nancy Swanner
Helen Swallow
Eryn Swanson

Wei-en Tan
Ashley Tharp
Bea St. Claire Thurston
Bonnie Tiburzi Caputo, Captain
Jean K. Tinsley
Gertrude Tompkins-Silver (archive photo)
Bobbi Trout (archival footage)

Polly Vacher
Lt Colonel Terry VandenDolder

Maj April Walker. USAF
Evie Lou Washington
Denise Waters
Keri Wiznerowicz
Emily Howell Warner
Dee Bond Wakelin (New Zealand)
Fay Gillis Wells (archival footage)
Susan Westervelt
Gary Wheeler
Penny White
Lewie Wiese
Cindy Wilson
Marolyn Wilson
Donna Forsyth Wilt
Valdeen Wooton
Katherine Wright (archival photos)
Susan Wright (arhival photo)

Janet Yoder
Capt Lucy B. Young, USNR retired

Roberta Zimmerman