Early female pilots rivaled Earhart in courage

The release of a feature film has renewed attention to the aviator Amelia Earhart, but there were other notable women who shared the skies with her in the early days of flying - some of them from Long Island.

Earhart, who was born in 1897 in Kansas, was just a teenager when two women entered the books as the first female solo aviator.

Who's first?

Blanche Stuart Scott began taking flying lessons in upstate Hammondsport directly from aviation pioneer and aircraft company founder Glenn Curtiss. A gust of wind lifted her plane off the ground as she was learning to taxi, and some recognize that as the first female flight.

Within weeks of Scott's adventure, Bessica Medlar Raiche of Mineola also flew solo and was recognized by the Aeronautic Society as the first.

A year later Harriet Quimby became the first woman in the United States, and the second in the world, to obtain a pilot's license. A stunning beauty, Quimby was a New York theater critic and photojournalist when she began flying at the Moisant Aviation School on Long Island's Hempstead Plains.

At the time, women rarely drove automobiles. They were not allowed to vote or to serve on juries in most states. Quimby was ambitious, fearless and no doubt enjoyed her celebrity. "Woman in Trousers Daring Aviator: Long Island Folk Discover That Miss Harriet Quimby Is Making Flights at Garden City," read a New York Times headline on May 11, 1911.

It took courage

She was the first female pilot to fly at night and the first to cross the English Channel, in 1912. A few months after that feat, she fell to her death from her monoplane in front of thousands of spectators during an aviation meet in Dorchester Bay, Mass.

Quimby's death did not deter other adventurous women from taking flight, but many of them had near-death experiences.

Matilde Moisant, the second woman in the United States to obtain a pilot's license and Quimby's close friend, crashed her plane in Texas in 1912. It burst into flames on landing, yet she lived.

A pilot of color

Bessie Coleman wasn't so lucky. Denied the right to obtain a pilot's license in the United States because she was black, Coleman learned to speak French and earned a pilot's license in Paris in 1921.

Back in the States, she was then sought out to perform flying feats at exhibitions. She fell to her death from her plane while practicing for an event in Orlando, Fla., in 1926.

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Early-flight aficionados are well acquainted with Long Island's Elinor Smith, who took her first solo flight from Roosevelt Field at a mere 15 years of age. In 1928, Smith, of Freeport, became the nation's youngest person to obtain a pilot's license.

She set altitude, speed and endurance records, but she's arguably best known for one of the most daring flying stunts of the era - on Oct. 21, 1928, she flew under all four bridges spanning the East River.

Smith didn't take part in the first all-women's transcontinental air derby from Santa Monica, Calif., to Cleveland. Dubbed the Powder Puff Derby by pundit Will Rogers, it featured 20 women in the race, which began on Aug. 18, 1929. As was common in those days, these pilots were equipped only with paper maps and compasses for navigation.

One of the participants, Marvel Crosson, would not finish the race. Her body was found 200 feet from her crashed plane in an Arizona desert.

Superstar in her day

The winner of the Powder Puff Derby was Louise Thaden of Arkansas, who was an aviation superstar in her heyday, yet today is remarkably obscure. Thaden went on to win the 1936 Bendix Cup with co-pilot Blanche Noyes in the first year women were allowed to compete in that major air contest. Thaden also set speed and endurance records before she retired from flying to raise a family.

As for Amelia Earhart, while she took part in the Powder Puff Derby, she only came in third. Of course, she did go on to set extraordinary aviation records. The biopic in theaters now casts her as an exceptionally daring trailblazer - as were many of those women who yearned to fly in her era.