The list famous women aviators could go on and on. We narrowed it down to five international aviators for All About Aviation.gr’s first list dedicated to the women who have made history in the industry.
Bessie Coleman
Coleman loved to fly but couldn’t enroll in any American flight schools due to her African heritage. So, she traveled to where she could get her license: France. In 1922, she became the first qualified black female pilot in the world. Back in the States, Coleman became a stunt flyer and worked in the movie industry. Sadly, she was killed in 1926 when she was practicing for a flying show.
Sabiha Gökçen
Sabiha Gökçen is an adopted child of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey’s first President. However, she grew up to become the world’s first female combat pilot. In 1936 she flew combat missions during the Dersim rebellion. Over the next 30 years that followed she continued to take to the skies and logged in 80,000 hours of flying time. An international airport named after her in Turkey.
Svetlana Savitskaya
Svetlana Saviskya is the first woman to walk in space. Born in 1948 in Moscow, Savitskya loved parachuting as a child and made 450 jumps before her 18th birthday. She finally learned to fly at the Moscow Aviation Institute where she mastered 20 different aircraft. Later on she joined the Soviet space program and by 1980 she became a cosmonaut. She became the second women in space, aboard the Soyuz T-7. While she was stationed on the Salyut 7 she completed the first spacewalk by a woman, lasting three hours. Savitskaya retired from the Russian space program in 1993.
Helene Dutrieu
Dutrieu earned her pilot license from the Aero Club of Belgium in 1910 making her the fourth woman in the world and first Belgian women to earn her license. Dutrieu went on to set records for altitude and distance. She was the first female to fly more than an hour, and the first women to fly with a passenger. She was awarded the French Legion of Honor for her achievements in aviation.
Amelia Earhart
Earhart is hands down one of the most famous pilots of all time. In 1923, she became the 16th woman to earn her pilot license. She earned top celebrity status when she set a record as the first woman to fly across North America and the first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic. Her ultimate goal was to circumnavigating the globe via the longest route around the world. She crashed on her first attempt due to pilot error. Her disappearance during her second attempt is one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century. Her plane disappeared over the central Pacific.
We think this is a good variety of five great women who made strides in the aviation industry. Any that you would add? We’ll include them in the next list.
