Fiction Books About the WASP

This is an audio version of the book - a paperback version is also available for much less!

The Woman In The Wing is a mystery that follows the adventures of Charlotte Mercer and other members of the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) during World War II. This organization, made up entirely of women, was loosely attached to the Air Force and did routine flying missions within the United States, such as delivering planes to new locations, or towing targets for gun practice, so that male pilots in the Air Force would be freed for fighting missions overseas. The women in the WASP were not considered full service people, and had no benefits such as medical insurance or even money to cover funerals when a woman died during a mission. Still, women flocked to serve as opportunities to fly and serve the country were rare. Charlotte, know as Char is crushed when weeks from getting her wings, she encounters a Air Force Major who refuses to pass her for graduation unless she performs sexual favors for him.
When Char refuses, she is taken off the flying rotation and given an alternate assignment. She is assigned to work undercover in a plant that builds aircraft, and that has been experiencing sabotage and accidents. Char is to room with an FBI agent named Ellie, and they work at riveting plane wings while trying to discover the spy responsible for the problems. People start to die, both plant employees and women pilots, and the book revolves around the investigation until the spy is captured at the book's climax.

This book is recommended, both for mystery fans and for those interested in World War II history. While I'd heard of the stereotype of Rosie the Riveter and the work these women performed, I had never heard of the WASP, and the women who served their country in this fashion. I found the history as interesting as the plotline and welcomed the chance to learn more about a time that helped lay the groundwork for the women's liberation movement in the next generation. --Sandra Booksie's Blog

(I take this description from the Amazon webpage)





a. Since when does a paperback sell for $27?
b. Here's the description from the Amazon.com website:

Glynn Compton Harper's novel, Arise Beloved, set in WWII, is an adventure-filled story of love and war about an orphaned, rootless young woman, Becky Bright and her first lover, Troy McNutt, a navy pilot. Afraid to fly at first, she agrees to go up with Troy and finds she loves flying. Troy teaches her to fly and she soon becomes a famous woman aviator. After Pearl Harbor, unable to fly because of the war, Becky separates from Troy and joins the courageous Women Air Force Service Pilots, the famed WASP of WWII. Seeking a family, she marries Jerry Crawford, a B-17 navigator, a man with a close-knit family, but Jerry is unfaithful to her and asks for a divorce just before he is shot down and captured by the Germans. Expelled from the WASPs after an unauthorized flight, Becky risks her life in a dangerous mission to exchange her faithless husband for Gunther Hammer, a German POW. In the meantime, her first lover, Troy, is shot down by the Japanese and marooned on a South Pacific island where he fathers a daughter with a Polynesian woman, who later abandons him and their child. After the war, Becky is reunited with Troy, and with his daughter, they become the family she has been seeking all her life.

After reading that description, who needs to read the book? And of course she does it all for (unfaithful) husband and family...

Kitty Hawk comics

Well, if that don't beat all.

A couple of days ago I announced a new feature that would make its debut in January... it's a web comicstrip that I hoped would break ground and take the world by storm...

Turns out someone already beat me to it... only they are doing a webcomic rather than a comic strip...

And the name is so clever... Kitty Hawk! A name that never would have occurred to me! Dang! I had struggled and struggled to find a name for my female character that would evoke adventure and aviation... Kitty Hawk is perfect and it never occurred to me. OF course I wouldn't have been able to use the name but I just wish I had thought of it!

Anyway, here's the URL:

http://kittyhawkcomic.com/storyline/

Addition to Fly Girl Library: The Book of Air Shows

Just picked up The Book of Air Shows, by Philip Handleman. Schiffer Aviation History 1993.

I got it through Amazon, and didn't know what I was getting. I wanted a book that told the history of airshows, instead I just got a book full of photos of planes taken at airshows.

Good photos, I'm not saying otherwise, but not what I wanted....

Press Release: Eur-Avia Cannes 2010

Eur-Avia Cannes 2010:
As registration decision-time approaches, good news

www.eur-avia.com
CANNES, France; 30 November, 2009 Approaching the closing of guaranteed registration (December 15th), the organizers of the International Exhibition of General Aviation, Eur-Avia Cannes, have announced an enthusiastic response and strong preliminary registration support for the 4th Annual International Exhibition of General Aviation, to be held in Cannes, June 4-6, 2010.

Already, 90% of exhibitors from previous exhibitions have booked space for their 2010 return, including Cessna, Hawker Beechcraft, Socata, Mooney, Piper, Husky, Robinson, Total, Glass Cockpit Aviation, Smart Air, Cirrus, Pilatus, Tecnam, VL3, and many other key businesses in world GA.

Many new exhibitors will enhance the exhibition in several areas of general aviation, with particular emphasis on what was called the “Very Light Jet” segment, which is expanding into both corporate and personal travel markets.

The 2010 edition, open from June 4 to 6 at Cannes International Airport, will showcase major products and machines from around the world, including the Embraer Phenom 100 and 300 and the Diamond D-Jet; Cannes will also celebrate the European premier appearance of the PiperJet.

Eur-Avia Cannes is the only general aviation exhibition in France, and the international appeal of the French Riviera in late springtime draws enthusiastic visitors from France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Greece, Russia, Africa, and the Americas. Thus, by its positioning, Eur-Avia Cannes hits 50% of the European market, and an aware, well-traveled contingent from the rest of the world.

The exhibition runs June 4, 5, 6, 2010 on the International Airport of Cannes, Mandelieu (LFMD).

Testimonials:
“Through its location in Cannes, the international centre for general aviation between Southern Europe and Russia, and with easy access for our customers and our prospects, Eur-Avia is the ideal place to show off the latest news to a demanding public.” Philippe de Ségovia, DAHER-Socata

“Each year, Eur-Avia allows to our company to come and showcase all of its range to targeted and quality customers. This international platform is highly frequented by our customers.” Patrice Magot, Cessna Aircraft

About Eur-Avia
The Eur-Avia Cannes exhibition brings together the leading protagonists in general and business aviation to allow a demanding clientéle discovery the latest developments and industry innovations in a geographically logical and appealing setting.

This professional exhibition is designed for owners and pilots, whether passionate fans or professionals, in general and business aviation throughout Europe, offering visitors a large and representative palette of the aeronautics industry.

Eur-Avia Cannes is southern Europe’s leading exhibition in general and business aviation.

____________________________

Eur-Avia Cannes 2010: June 4,5,6
International Exhibition of General Aviation
Cannes Mandelieu Airport - LFMD
www.eur-avia.com
) : + 33 4 93 08 01 77
6 : + 33 4 93 59 25 53
* samantha@eur-avia.com

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 email. (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

--No Limits: A woman pilot's search for the real Amelia Earhart, Linda Finch.
--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

--The Book of Airshows, Philip Handleman
--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.