Fay Wells with the Winnie Mae. NASA public domain image colelction.
Summary
(1976) Fay Gillis Wells, writer, broadcaster, foreign correspondent, sailor, designer of boat interiors and noted aviatrix, stands in the National Air and Space Museum beside the Winnie Mae. This is the plane in which Wiley Post made his record-breaking global flight in 1933. Fay Wells participated in Posts achievement by managing the fuel dumps for the Winnie Mae in Siberia and by providing Wiley Post with the maps and navigation data. These services contributed to the success of the flight by which Post broke his own global record of 1931. Invited by Wiley Post to fly with him on a global mission in 1935, she decided instead to cover the Italian-Ethiopian War with her journalist husband, Linton Wells. Thus, Will Rogers was invited by Post as her replacement and went with him on the ill- fated journey that ended in an air crash fatal to both men. One of the founders of the Ninety-Nines, an association of licensed women pilots (named for the number of charter members) established in 1929, Fay Wells later became the organizations Bicentennial program chairman. In that capacity, she initiated the founding of the International Forest of Friendship in Atchison, Kansas, hometown of Amelia Earhart, the first president of the Ninety-Nines. The forest was established to honor aviation and space and those who pioneered in air and space flight. In the forest are plantings from tree seeds flown in lunar orbit during NASAs Apollo 14 mission to the Moon by astronaut Stuart Roosa. Apollo 17 astronaut Ron Evans planted the "Moon tree" seedlings at the dedication ceremony in Atchison on July 24,1986 (Amelia Earharts birthday)...Image # : 76-H-618
NASA Photo Collection
Élisabeth Thible flew above Lyon, France in 1784. Jeanne Labrosse became the first woman to parachute. Sophie Blanchard took her first balloon flight in 1804, and was made Napoleon's chief of air service in 1811. In 1903, Aida de Acosta, an American woman vacationing in Paris piloted airship, becoming the first known woman to pilot a motorized aircraft. Katharine Wright flew the Wright Model A. Emma Lilian Todd designed her own airplanes. Her first plane flew in 1910. Georgia "Tiny" Broadwick became the first woman to jump from an aircraft in 1913. Raymonde de Laroche, was the world's first licensed female pilot. Seven other French women followed her in 1901-1902. Blanche Scott claimed to be the first American woman to fly an airplane and established herself as a daredevil pilot. Bessica Raiche recognized as the first American woman to make a solo flight. Harriet Quimby became the USA's first licensed female pilot on August 1, 1911 and the first woman to cross the English Channel by airplane the following year. Lidia Zvereva, the first female Russian license performed her first aerobatic loop in 1914. In 1913, Lyubov Golanchikova signed a contract to become the first female test pilot to test "Farman-22" manufactured in Russia. In 1916, Zhang Xiahun (Chinese: 張俠魂) China's first female pilot crashed, becoming a national heroine when she survived. Katherine Stinson became the first woman air mail pilot, when the United States Postal Service. The following year, Ruth Law flew the first official U.S. air mail to the Philippines. In 1936, Hanna Reitsch of Germany became one of the first persons to fly a fully controllable helicopter and earned the first woman helicopter pilot's license. In 1937 Sabiha Gökçen of Turkey became the first trained woman combat pilot, participating in search operations and bombing flight. In 1943 Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were flying new planes from factories to Army Air Force bases, worked as test pilots. In 1942 Soviet Union created an all-woman combat flight unit, the 588th Night-Bomber Air-Regiment or the Night Witches. They flew harassment and precision bombing missions and "dumped 23,000 tons of bombs on the German invaders". The Soviets also had the only women to be considered flying aces like Lydia Litvyak and Yekaterina Budanova.