Women Aviators (19 page)

Edwards Air Force Base needed to expand, but the only direction was through the Happy Bottom Riding Club. Pancho fought the air force to keep her land. When a fire broke out on Pancho's place in November 1953, she suspected it was arson but couldn't prove it. She soon gave up the ranch.

Pancho eventually made her peace with Edwards Air Force Base before she died in 1975. And the base remembers her each year by celebrating Pancho Barnes Day.

A
LTHOUGH WOMEN PILOTS HAVE
proven their abilities in the skies in both peacetime and war, it took longer to convince commercial airlines that women could also pilot passenger aircraft. In 1934, Helen Richey became the first woman pilot hired by a regularly scheduled airline, but it would be almost forty years before the next woman piloted an airliner.

In the United States, the Department of Commerce regulated flying until the Federal Aviation Administration was formed in the 1950s. Until the 1970s, women were barred from both military and commercial flying. As soon as the ban was lifted, women began entering the commercial aviation industry. However, even though the government had given the OK,
it still took time to convince commercial airlines that women could do the job.

Pilots must earn a commercial pilot's license to fly for airlines; that requires ground school and 200 to 300 hours of flight training. Commercial airline pilots must have earned at least a certificate for single-engine and multiengine aircraft, plus instrument ratings. Commercial airline pilots can find themselves working up to 14 to 16 hours straight and at all different hours. To captain an airliner, a pilot must have an Airline Transport Pilot certificate (ATP), which requires receiving a commercial pilot certificate, passing a written exam and an FAA flight exam, and racking up 1,500 pilot-in-command hours. The captain of a commercial airline is not only responsible for the airplane but also for the crew, passengers, and cargo.

Emily Warner became the next female airline pilot almost 40 years after Helen Richey. She started working with Frontier Airlines on January 29, 1973. American Airlines hired its first female pilot, Bonnie Tiburzi, a couple of months later. Later that
year, Delta hired the company's first female pilot as well. In 1982, the first female jet captains in the United States were working for Piedmont Airlines. Two years later, Great Britain's first all-female airline crew flew passengers from England to Holland.

In 1984, women pilots rejoiced when two aviators demonstrated the capabilities of female pilots. Captain Lynn Rippelmeyer and Captain Beverly Burns both worked for People Express Airlines. On July 19, the two took off from New Jersey's Newark International Airport as the captains of Boeing 747s. At the time, the 747 was the ultimate airliner, often called a jumbo jet.

Lynn and Beverly were the first women to captain 747s. They flew in opposite directions for their historical flights. Beverly became the first woman to pilot a 747 cross-country to Los Angeles. Lynn did something similar to what Amelia Earhart had done fifty years earlier. She took the 747 across the Atlantic Ocean.

Lynn Rippelmeyer, from Illinois, began her aviation career as a flight attendant in 1972. At one point, she wasn't allowed to make announcements during flights. The airline believed that hearing a woman's voice during the flight would be upsetting for passengers.

Lynn began taking flying lessons and loved it. In fact, flying was addictive for her; when she wasn't doing it, she wanted to be. Within five years, she was part of the first all-female crew for a commercial airline. When Lynn landed her 747 with 470 passengers at Gatwick Airport in London, she became the first woman to fly a 747 commercial airliner across the Atlantic Ocean.

When the airline People Express became part of Texas Air, Lynn went along and became its second pilot. Later, the
company became part of Continental Airlines. While she was with Continental, Lynn heard about a program called Medical Bridges. She saw the good things this medical charity was doing for others and began volunteering to fly medical supplies to clinics and hospitals in Honduras.

Like Lynn, Beverly also began her aviation career as a flight attendant. When talking about career choices with her high school counselor, Beverly mentioned that she would like a job in travel. The counselor recommended that Beverly be a stewardess, not a pilot.

She worked as a stewardess for American Airlines from 1971 to 1978. After overhearing a male first officer explain that women weren't smart enough to become airline pilot captains, Beverly promptly signed up for flying lessons. Her instructor, Robert Burns, had been taught by a former WASP who had made him promise to help a capable woman pilot break into the airline industry. When he met Beverly, it seemed like fate. The two later married.

Beverly's first job after receiving her license was as a charter pilot. She began as a first officer for People Express in 1981. Four years later, Beverly received the Amelia Earhart Award for her success as a commercial airline captain.

After 27 years of flying for airlines, Beverly retired with more than 25,000 flight hours. In addition to the 747, she has captained DC-9s, DC-10s, and Boeing aircraft 727s, 737s, 757s, 767s, and a Boeing 777. She was the first woman with Continental to captain a Boeing 777, and her first flight was from Houston, Texas, to London.

W
ITH MORE THAN 18,500
hours in the air, Wally Funk has had almost every aviation-related job—flight instructor, transport pilot, commercial pilot, investigator, and more. CFI, AI, MEL, glider, IGI, GS, and air safety investigator—these are all certifications she has earned since she began flying at age 20.

Wally was born wanting to fly. She took her first test flight at age five when she jumped off her father's barn wearing a Superman cape. A bale of hay caught her. Growing up in Taos, New Mexico, in the 1940s and 1950s allowed her to spend lots of time outdoors trying out her athletic skills, whether she was running, skiing, or shooting. She received the Distinguished Rifleman's
Award at age 14. At the same time, she represented the southwestern United States as a top female skier in slalom and downhill races in United States competitions. When she was indoors, she built model airplanes.