So our next lecture is Dr. Elizabeth Clark. She attended Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences where she graduated in 1987. She holds, sorry did you not want me to say the date? It's okay, I'm old. She holds board certifications in family medicine, aerospace medicine, occupational medicine, and preventive medicine because she's an overachiever. Dr. Clark served as the past president of AOCOPM and is a national expert speaker on matters related to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. She's a fellow of both AOCOPM and FAIMA. Dr. Clark dedicated 25 years of her career to the U.S. Air Force as a flight surgeon and today she'll be giving a lecture on women in aviation. Welcome Dr. Clark. Thank you. So I'm going to tell you don't ever let Chris Bellen buy you a drink because that's how he talked me into doing this. And so I had a couple people go, well you're going to spend a whole hour talking about Amelia Earhart? And I said no, no, no, there's much more interesting people than her. And the only reason most of us have only heard about her is she had money, okay? And she was a darling, okay? And I will talk about her some because she did break some barriers, okay? There's some really interesting people that I, until I did this, had never heard of. I will tell you that I was fortunate enough that one of my really good friends was an intern in D.C. and started the initial money for the WASP Museum that's up there. And when she retired several years ago, she retired at the WASP Museum, which is now functioning in Washington, D.C. WASP, that you don't know, the women flew during World War II, okay? And I will go through some of that now, but it's a pretty interesting thing if you've never seen it, okay? They trained at Sweetwater, Texas, and they were from all over the country. And this was back in a time when women did not fly, period. Okay, come on, you nice computer. There. I'm supposed to tell you what I'm going to tell you, and I have given questions to the board, but they're not hard. I mean, just listen. You'll be fine. Oops. Okay. First, women to fly. The thing that was also very interesting is I went, I looked at my books, and there's not a single chapter in the heart or night on women in aviation. So, you'll see where I got my information from, because I think it's important that you know where I got it. The first woman to fly was Blanche Scott, okay? And she just happened to be taxiing an airplane, and it became airborne. She didn't have a pilot license, but she was the first woman to fly. Harriet Quimby was the first U.S. woman to fly, and she became licensed as a pilot in August of 1911. Big deal, okay? First woman across, she was the first woman to fly across the English Channel, and she was very controversial. She smoked, which when women, they didn't admit to that. She owned her own car, which was a big deal. Think about that. And she flew a plane. She traveled extensively by herself, which was also very taboo at that point. So, she was quite the character. Fortunately, she was killed in July of 1912 at an air meet when she was thrown from her airplane and didn't have a parachute on and fell to the ground and died. But she was a very controversial lady, and if you want to do more research, there's a lot of pictures and stuff. I was a little afraid of the copyright rules, so I didn't include those, but they're all over the internet, okay? Oops. There's a really nice organization called the 99s, and in 1929, there was a putterpuff derby. It was a woman's air derby, and a group of female pilots flew in that and shared a common bond, and they formed the 99s, okay? And on October 9th of 1929, they held their first meeting, and on November 2nd, they were at Curtis Field in Valley Stream, New York, and this meeting was led by Amelia Earhart, to give you some perspective. She was later elected as their first president. Now, interestingly enough, Amelia Earhart grew up where she had access to flying lessons, and on the East Coast, they had a flying club that was pretty much for the elite, okay? So they had instructors, access to really nice airplanes, and it provided those people, a large number of them, got their pilot's licenses. Eleanor Smith, she was one of the youngest licensed pilots in the world. She got her pilot's license at 16, and she set a lot of endurance and speed and altitude records in her lifetime, and she was named by her fellow flyers in 1930 as the female pilot of the year, which is a pretty big deal. Amelia Earhart, like I said, most people were saying, oh, you're going to spend an hour talking about her, and I'm like, she was good, and she did a lot of stuff, okay? But pilots considered Eleanor a better pilot, okay? She was separated, celebrated as the flying flapper, because she liked to dress up, and she was one of the first women featured on a Wheaties cereal box, okay? So she retired from flying at 29, wow, and because basically she focused on her family, but she resumed after her husband died, and in 2000, at the age of 88, she became the oldest pilot to complete a simulated shuttle landing, which is pretty powerful. She, Eleanor Smith was really kind of an amazing woman. She did raise her family, and waited until her husband died to resume flying. So she was the professional pilot for most of the women, and most desirable goal in the world. She was never going to allow age or sex to bar her from flying, okay? She was born in August 17th, 1911, in New York City. She had her first flight at age six, on a farm man busher biplane, and she was hooked from that age on. She got her first, like I said, first pilot's license at 16, and she was lucky enough to grow up on the east coast in Long Island, which this was the heyday of flying, and she had access to some of the best airfields and most famous flyers. So she was fortunate, she was put in the right place. So she was 15 when she took her first solo flight. Can you imagine, can you remember what you were doing at 15? I can't. It certainly wasn't anything this great, and later, a year later, she became the youngest woman to get a pilot's license in the United States. She, this is pretty amazing, it's probably wildly illegal, but she flew under all four East River suspension bridges, a feat that's never been accomplished by another pilot, and she wasn't put in jail, which is good. In 1928, she set the light airplane altitude record of 11,889 feet. In 1929, she set four world records, and in 1929, she set the woman's speed record at 100.8 miles per hour in a Curtis Falcon over a closed course in Long Island, once again, East Coast. 190.8, and in 1930, Smith was voted the best woman pilot in the United States. So she, this lady was Chinese, as you can remember. As you can see, she received her pilot's license from Switzerland, but she couldn't get, she couldn't go to school where she was from. She moved to Oakland in 1935, where she was an instructor pilot for acrobats, because women, when they started doing women, they would let them do everything but acrobatics, so she was doing acrobatics when she slipped out of her seat belt and used a parachute to lay in San Francisco Bay. For those of you that don't know, San Francisco Bay is pretty darn cold at any time of the year. She did survive, and she became a member of the Caterpillar Club, where you had to exit from an aircraft using a parachute, emergency exit, and those people that survived were then members of the Caterpillar Club. In 1936, she received her first Chinese pilot's license, and she did unfortunately die in 28 January 1998 at the age of 86. So this was a family. The entire family flew, and it was kind of a publicity stunt, and they flew a lot. In 1930, Colonel Hutchinson, his wife Blanche, daughters Catherine and Janet all flew along with their mascot, who was a little lion cub named Governor, and they flew to all 48 capitals, promoting flight is safe, and Janet Lee of note became one of the first WASP pilots in World War II. Bessie Coleman, probably one of my favorite flags. She was of Native American and Black descent. She was one of 13 children born to sharecroppers in Atlanta, Texas. She worked in a cotton field as a child, so she was truly poor, and she actually had to go to school to become a pilot. And she actually had to go to France to get a pilot's license, which she did, because she could not receive training in the United States as either a woman or a Black woman. Unfortunately, Bessie did die at 34 when she was thrown from her aircraft, but she was really instrumental in getting the Tuskegee Airmen off the ground, because it was illegal for a person of color to attend flight school in this country. And so she became an instructor pilot and was a good funnel for Tuskegee Airmen. What do you mean? She wasn't secured, and when she did acrobatics, she was thrown from aircraft. A lot of people died that way. The first U.S. Navy fighter aircraft, Hellcat, she tested the planes. In 1941, she became an instructor pilot at the Long Island Aviation Country Club in Hicksville, New York. Once again, another very posh area. And during World War II, Barbara flew as a courier pilot for Grumman, and she flew parts, people, and passengers. Unfortunately, she did pass away in 1999 in Rancho Santa Fe. For those of you that don't understand or knew about the Watts pilots, they flew in World War II, and they were pressed into duty to move airplanes around in a non-combat position, because they wanted to save that for men. Actually, Hap Arnold was involved in this, and he saw the wisdom of having women ferry airplanes around. In 1942, Hap Arnold, General Arnold, agreed to train and use women. The training facility, which is still there, was Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. Okay. In 5 July, General Arnold put Jackie Cochran, which was one of the very famous first pilots, in charge of all women aviators, and Nancy Lowe as the executive. Now, this is important because that brought everybody together. All the women that were flying then all became together as WASPs. In 1943, the WAFs and the WFTDs all became known as WASPs. What's really important is, this sounds very military, but none of these pilots had any military benefits until 1978. President Carter conferred upon them limited benefits. When they died, they had no military benefits, and so the pilots would kick in money to cover the fumes. The program graduated 1,074 pilots, which ferried 50 percent of the combat aircraft during the U.S. during the war years. The WASPs flew to 126 bases, and they also flew towing targets for gunnery practice. So, some of them died when folks weren't really good at shooting at the things, and they shot at them, and they died. The WASPs also served as instrument instructors for the Eastern Flying Training Command. Of note, 38 women pilots, female pilots, died, 11 in training and 27 in flying missions. So, there was a significant number that were lost. In 1944, General Arnold wanted to commission these female pilots as second lieutenants in the military, but serious opposition from the Congress, and this did not occur. So, the Ramspec Committee rejected having military women pilots, and on the 23rd of December 1977, President Carter started a bill giving WASPs military benefits. It's a long time. On March 10, 2010, President Obama awarded the WASPs Congressional Medal of Honor. Yes? Did you, in your readings, find out about the same thing with the female pilots? How many aircraft did you hear about? I didn't do anything with the British. I just stuck with the U.S. About British? I didn't know if it was a U.S. idea first, or if they were... Heck, Arnold's pretty forward-thinking. Unfortunately, he was not, he did not have enough sway to get them through as military pilots, unfortunately. So, Amelia Earhart is who we all think about when we think about a female pilot. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and non-stop. She wanted to fly around the world, and tragically, her last leg of her flight, she went missing the 2nd of July 1937. On 30 January 2024, they believe that they found her aircraft. It's like, really, they found it with a remote-controlled submarine. They're not sure, but they're pretty sure that they found it, okay? So she didn't make it. Plane went down. She was an incredibly brave human. I'm wondering where did she come out? You wouldn't ask me that. It was off of an island way, way far away. So I don't remember. We got out. It was in the Southeast Sea, if I remember correctly. So first astronaut, not Americans. Okay, cosmonaut. So, and the reason she got picked was she wrote a letter and volunteered, and they picked her. And NASA took them until 1978. And then they had six females for a space shuttle mission. Previously, women could not be astronauts because one of the requirements for astronauts in the United States was that they had to be graduates of a military test pilot school. And the military test pilot school was not accepting any women. So Eileen Collins, everybody thinks about Sally Ride, but Eileen Collins was actually the first woman in space. And she piloted the space shuttle in 1995. And in 1999, she was the first commander of the space shuttle. Big deal. So the first African-American career woman and the first African-American commercial pilot, excuse me, the first African-American pilot in civil air patrol. And she formed the National Airmen's Association of America to get African-Americans into military pilots. She became quite well-known for getting male pilots of color into Tuskegee Airmen. So she was really, really fundamentally important for us. So Jackie Cochran was the first woman to break the sound barrier. And guess who her chase pilot was? Chuck Yeager, okay? And so she broke the first sound barrier in 1953 as a female. Dr. Sally Ride, in June 7th, 1983, became the first woman in space during the STS-7. And in 1960, only 12,400 female pilots existed in the United States. The number doubled by the end of the decade and female pilots were up to 4.3%. And today we have 6% female pilots in the United States. So what U.S. airline has the most female pilots? Oh, no, no, I already told you. What do you think? Southwest. What country has the most commercial female pilots? India. So, you know, we've come a long way. Today we still have a long way to go. So Geraldine Mock was the first woman to fly around the world in a single-engine Cessna. And that was in 1964. Mary Barr became the first female pilot in the Forest Service in 1974. And Ensign Mary Crawford, in 1981, became the first Naval flight officer. Charlotte Lawson became the first female smoke jumper in 83. Beverly Burns became the first woman to captain the 747 across the country. And Captain Lynn Rippenmeyer became the first woman to captain a 747 on a transatlantic flight. Today women pilots fly for airlines, military, and in space, command helicopter, bersey flights, haul flight, or freight, stock, high mountain lakes, sea clouds, patrol pipelines, teach students to fly, maintain jet engines, and transport corporate officers. So Mae Carol Jemison, she was the first female in space, and that was 1992. She served as an engineer, physician, and astronaut. Pretty high achiever. She served as a mission specialist on a space shuttle in 1992, and she is still alive and still speaking. And if you get a chance, please go hear her. She's pretty impressive. Okay, so for those of you that don't know this, I was the first woman in Air Force Special Operations. And I just wanted to share some personal things that a lot of these women probably had to overcome. So I, for most of you that don't know my story, because I didn't tell a whole lot of people, in 1993, I was leaving Panama where I was assigned, and I really, really wanted a job in special operations. I really, because I'd been working with the SEALs and been doing all kinds of really crazy stuff in Latin America, so I wanted that job. So I took my own dime and flew up to Herbert Field, got an appointment, and interviewed with the second in command at special ops, who happened to have been a roommate of a friend of mine that I knew from flying Arovac in Desert Shore. Honor God's honest truth. And super, super interesting gentleman. He made time to see me even though the aircraft had just crashed the day before, and he was on the hook for doing all the aircraft stuff. And interviewed with him, told him what I wanted to do, shook his hand, and I'd been out in the waiting area for like an hour waiting to see him. And I was chit-chatting with folks, and what I didn't know, I was chit-chatting with his wife. And she was really excited about having a female flight surgeon, because there weren't very many female flight surgeons when I started in the Air Force. And there'd never been one at the special operations. So I didn't know who she was, just a nice person I was chit-chatting with. And so she went in and I guess saw her husband and then came back out. I didn't know where she went. Back in, saw her husband, and he says, well, I want to hire you. And he says, but it's not legal, so let me see what I can do. And I said, well, it's still not legal. And he says, well, maybe I can finagle something. And I said, I appreciate you trying, but if it's not legal, it's not legal. So I went back to the ACC Surgeon General, and I said, if it magically becomes legal, will you release me so that I can go to special ops? He laughed, Roger Vanderbeek, by the way, he laughed. He shook my hand, he said, okay, we'll do that. I said, okay, sounds like a plan. Went back to Panama, and two months later, my mail, my furniture, everything is going to Langley. And they made it legal for women to hold combat positions. So they did, they took, they made good on their plan. And I ended up at Herbert Field in Florida as their first female in special ops. So immediately what they did was send me to survival school and then send me back for advanced survival school, and then send me to every course they could think of to try and make me quit, basically. And while I was at survival school, the one that became the fighter pilot was there, and the media was just, they just did not leave her alone. And so, you know, special ops wanted to make me a poster, I was a new, new, I have a hard enough time just making it through. So I made it through the survival schools, but I would show up places, you know, since I was female, they'd try and make me leave. So I would volunteer for everything, because I was single, no reason not to. So I'd show up and they'd go, you're a female? Yes, I've been a female for a while. We don't have anywhere for you to sleep. They were serious, because it was an all male dominated thing. So I ended up sleeping most of the time in the clinics. There just wasn't any place else for me to sleep. They weren't ready for women. And when I got to special ops, they don't have any bathrooms on any of their aircrafts. They have urinals and they have a honeypot. What you don't know is the first person that uses the honeypot is to clean the honeypot. And I swear to God, these people must've been snoring on for weeks. Because I, you know, desperate, the flights are eight hours long, I can't hold it that long. And I go to use it and the guys were all freaked out because there's no, there's like no curtain or anything around it. I'm like, you gotta go, you gotta go. So I use it and like every load master, I mean, must've been saving for weeks. I'm out there scrubbing the honeypot every time I flew. It sucked. So anyway, but those were two of the big things. And then there were a couple of times that we went to major exercises where the army was like, we don't want any women here. Serious, generals didn't want women. But we were pretty much shorter docks. And so they would put me on the night shift where generally the generals, you don't see them. And they would hide me different places. So they, the generals wouldn't know there was actually a female in the middle of their exercise. And for me, I was telling somebody this the other night, you know, being the first woman I had, I met a lot of resistance from the men, as you can imagine. And I still remember in particular, I'm on, in an MC-130, there's usually about 14 to 15 people on headset. It's a big air crew. And I was assigned to the eighth SOS. And so I'm flying with them and it's like an eight hour flight. It's like forever. So I'm up in the jump seat. I got headphones on, I'm talking to folks. And all of a sudden the guy from the back goes, hey doc, when are you in the office this week? I need a physical. And I said, well, you know, cause we used to take turns cause we had a bunch of training and stuff to do. So we would have one day where we did physicals all day. And then if you were a flight surgeon for like the eighth, you would come in and see them or any family members that were sick and you would just make it work, okay? So I said, well, you know, my day is Wednesday to do physicals. But if somebody in your family needs to be seen, I can certainly slide in early or late or we can just make it work. And then there's silence on the other end. He goes, oh, so Wednesday is the day you're in the office. I said, so let me just take a wild guess. You don't want me to do your physical. And again, silence. And I said, it's fine, I don't have to do physical. But you know, all the other flight surgeons are mad. And if you want a man to touch your stuff, I said, don't ask, don't tell Air Force. And I can't say anything about it. And that's what you heard on the headset. Laughter, laughter, laughter. And he and his family were my patients from that day forward. And I never had another problem with people want physicals. Okay? So there's a lot of things being first sucks. It really does. I mean, the first two weeks I was there, I would go into a squadron and people would turn around and walk away, would not speak to me. It was pretty rough, but finally gained the respect when, you know, my head didn't spin around, you know, and I didn't become Linda Blair at the first drop of the hat. You know, I ended up being in the field with the Army several times. And we had an outbreak of what we thought was cholera at one point, it was that explosive. The diarrhea was so explosive, it was coming out their necks. And it was me and 2000 other men. It was me and 2000 men. And 10% of them were sick. Fortunately we had enough fluids, but did not end up being cholera, which was good, but we'd had a major cholera outbreak in Latin America where it had just come from. And so when that happened, they figured out I wasn't gonna like keel over when people had diarrhea or vomited in front of me. And I was pretty reasonable about keeping people flying if I could safely. Then they relaxed and allowed me to be their flight surgeon. So, and by the time I left, got recruited out of there to Fort Prague for another unit. By the time I left special ops to do the residency, I was having wives call me and they're saying, you know, my husband's not gonna tell you, but I know he's coming in for his physical. And then they tell me what's going on because pilots think really more. The most you'll get is have a friend who has this and they're a pilot and they wanna know if it's gonna make, you know, what you can do without ground. That's usually most of the conversations started or you'd be flying on an aircraft or you'd be doing something with them. And they would ask a question and sometimes, you know, sometimes you're gonna have to put feet on the ground for flight safety. And basically, if I didn't wanna fly with you, you're not safe. So if I'm gonna fly with you, you're safe to fly. So, and I know I've done a little bit early, but I will take questions and I will get you back on schedule. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So a couple of things. One, did you have to see anything about Stinson's? Anybody in the Air Force that was at Brooklyn? Brooks Air Force Base? The Stinson field, which is right next to Brooks Air Force Base, the Stinson family had two women. One was the first flight instructor there. The other one was the fourth woman in the United States to get a license to fly. So that's the second oldest commercial airport in the U.S. in Stinson. When I did my residency, I'm a residency trainer in aerospace medicine. We went to Stinson because that's where they, for those of you who don't know that, that's where they load up the airplane with bait for the wild animals for rabies. And so they feed them a vaccine in a liquid form and they do it all along the Mexico-Texas border. But no, I didn't know that. I know Stinson has been there forever. And Brooks City Base is no more. Most of the training moved up to Wright-Patt. And it's unfortunate because we had a lot of historical resource there. So I'm sorry to see it go. Anyway, I will be available if anyone wants to chat with me. And any of the students that are looking for a mentor, I'm always available. And I did leave. That's who I am. It's my personal cell phone number. And I also gave you, I just got hired again. I moved up to Colorado. And so I'm available if you guys need anything. Not an overachiever, just been in the military a lot. You know, and they reward you for getting the board certifications. Anybody else? Yes, sir. How old was the first woman? You said like the 1910, first line up. Was she a teenager, a middle-aged, like an older woman, the one you said? The one that took off? Yeah, she was over 21. And her brothers were pilots. And she was allowed to taxi the aircraft for that. But oops, she took off. I hate when that happens. I know. So, but, and a lot of folks had to go out of the country to get trained, which I thought was pretty, pretty severe. So, all right, y'all. I know we're a little early.

women in aviation

pioneering aviators

WASP WWII

gender disparities

aviation history

mentorship

Elizabeth Clark