99s Then and Now

Licensed Women Pilots

Raymonde de Laroche ~ World's First Licensed Woman Pilot   On October 22, 1909, Raymonde de Laroche was the first woman to pilot an aeroplane. Just a year prior, enraptured audiences in France watched Wilbur Wright demonstrate the Wright Flyer and take his first female passenger aloft. But women in the audience like Laroche were not content to be mere passengers. Born in Paris in 1886, Raymonde de Laroche was a stage actress and, like many of the early women pilots, she enjoyed bicycling and motor-car driving. Immediately drawn to this new motor sport, she prevailed on the Voisin aircraft builders to teach her to fly their machines. After her first solo, the addition of the title "baroness" enhanced her mystique. Other women in Europe and the United States were close on her heels, however, and the race was on to be the first to earn a pilot's license. After performing the required maneuvers before officials from the Aero Club of France, on March 8, 1910 Madame Laroche was issued brevet No. 36 by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, making her the first woman licensed pilot in the world. By the end of 1911, Lydia Zvereva of Russia, Hélène Dutrieu of Belgium, Harriet Quimby of the United States of America, Hilda Hewlett of Great Britain, Melli Beese of Germany, and Bozena Láglerová of Czechoslovakia had become the first licensed women pilots in their respective nations. Laroche performed in air shows and survived several automobile and airplane crashes. When civilian flight restrictions were lifted after World War I, she resumed flying and planned to be a test pilot. Laroche was killed in 1919 while acting as observer on an aircraft test flight.		Christina Jenkin ~ From Future Woman Pilot to Ninety-Nine   When Tina Jenkin showed an interest in flying, her pilot grandmother Dorothy Haupt-Spangler flooded her mailbox with information about The Ninety-Nines. In September 2000 Jenkin took her first lesson and became a Future Woman Pilot. The women organizing The Ninety-Nines in 1929 deliberately specified that membership was open to any woman with a pilot's license, a requirement intended to reinforce the credibility and professionalism of the new organization and its members. Decades later, proposals for changing membership criteria were discussed, while some 99s chapters informally dubbed the women student pilots they mentored "66s". A 1999 bylaws change created the Future Women Pilot membership category. Today FWPs enjoy the camaraderie of their sister pilots while sharing our commitment to The Ninety-Nines. Their fresh enthusiasm has even reignited an interest in aviation in some "old-timers" and moribund chapters. In 2001 the Amelia Earhart Memorial Scholarship Fund granted the first Future Women Pilot Awards, and of the seven winners, Jenkin was the first to finish her Private Pilot certificate and become a full-fledged Ninety-Nine. Now, when not at work at Sandia National Laboratories, she is training for her instrument rating on her way towards becoming a part-time flight instructor. "I would love to teach on weekends and before and after work," Jenkin says. "Any excuse to get up in the air!" With our help, Jenkin flew a path from granddaughter of a 99 to Future Woman Pilot to licensed pilot and Vice Chairman of the Albuquerque Chapter. Today Tina Jenkin represents a growing segment of the aviation community: She's a young, professional woman and licensed pilot - and she's a Ninety-Nine.
Recommended Reading Before Amelia: Women Pilots in the Early Days of Aviation by Eileen F. Lebow (Brassey's, Inc., 2002).