women in the left seat by Sergio Ortega guess what? SHE's the captain!

The first female pilots
The ascension into the aviation ranks wasn't easy at all. Not only is the pilot profession traditionnally reserved to men, but it is also a very dangerous activity at the time. The first licensed pilot was Harriet Quimby in 1911. She was also the first woman to fly across the English Channel, one year later, on a Blériot aircraft. She flew the same route Louis Blériot flew for the first time 4 years earlier. Beyond the gender barrier, there is also the racial barrier. Bessie Coleman fought hard to be the first United States pilot of African heritage*. She moved to France to study at the École d'Aviation des Frères Caudron, since the United States weren't very open to women as pilots... or to people of a different cultural background in general. She achieved her goal and obtained her license in 1921. However she could only take advantage of her license for nearly 5 years, as she died in a plane crash in 1926.

An important breakthrough was the apparition of all-women air races. The biggest one, the National Women's Air Derby in 1929, brought over 30 women in competition between Oakland, CA and Cleveland, OH. In Long Island, many of these women (26 at the time) meet and found The Ninety-Nines Club. The name got its true meaning afterwards, as 99 female licensed pilots were active members. The number of female pilots was constantly increasing, passing from 200 in 1930 to 700-800 in 1935. It is still a very small proportion at the time, compared to the number of licensed male pilots, ranging in the hundreds of thousands.

The first airline pilot
Flying as a hobby is one thing, but flying to earn a living is another. Helen Ritchey is the first "documented and verified" female pilot flying for a scheduled airline. Hired in December 1934 by Central Airlines, she left less than a year later, in October 1935. She was a victim of the all-male pilot union discrimination. But she opened the path to the other female airline pilots.

Between the 1940s and 1960s, a few countries, such as India and Bulgaria, started hiring women as pilots. But let's make a quick hop to the seventies, where discrimination is slowly becoming history. Emily Howell Warner is considered to be the first female pilot hired in the United States by a scheduled airline. Her employer was the old Frontier Airlines. She became a 737 Second Officer in 1973, then a DHC-6 Twin Otter First Officer in 1974, and finally a Twin Otter Captain in 1976. She later flew with Continental Airlines briefly before beginning a career at UPS as a 727 captain. She is also the first women to join the ALPA (Airline Pilots Association). Her pilot uniforms are displayed at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. as well as the Pima Air and Space Museum.

Here is a short list of the first female pilots in the major U.S. airlines. You will find the complete list at the ISWAP website, or by getting to their "firsts" menu.

Airline	Pilot name	Equipment	Hired
Alaska Airlines	Joanne Osterrud Nottke	DHC-6	1975
Aloha Airlines	Madeline "Mimi" Tompkins	B737	1979
America West Airlines	Debra McCormick	B737	1983
American Airlines	Bonnie Tiburzi	B727	1973
Braniff International	Sandra Saliba Simmons	B727	1974
Continental Airlines	Mary Hirsch	N/A	1977
Delta Air Lines	Joy Walker	DC-9	1973
Eastern Airlines	Barbara Barrett Smith	N/A	1973
Frontier Airlines (I)	Emily Howell Warner	DHC-6	1973
Hawaiian Airlines	Sharon Emminger	SD330	1978
Midway Airlines (I)	Sharon Finch	DC-9	1982
Midwest Express	Tanya Cunningham	DC-9	1988
National Airlines (I)	Susan Horstman*	N/A	1979
New York Air	Linda Smith	N/A	1985
Northwest Airlines	Abigail Davis	N/A	1979
Ozark Airlines	Jaqueline Gerber	N/A	1977
PSA	Sari Schneph	B727	1981
Pan Am (I)	Colleen Burgess*	B727	1987
PEOPLExpress	Beverly Burns	B737	1981
Piedmont Airlines	Cheryl Faye Peters	YS-11	1974
Reno Air	Theresa Mally	MD-80	1992
Republic Airlines	Barbara Wiley**	CV580	1974
Southwest Airlines	Cathy Jones	B737	1982
Texas International	Marcelyn Bishop	N/A	1978
TWA	Karen Davies Lee	N/A	1978
United Airlines	Gail Gorski	B737	1978
US Airways	Joyce Stripp	BAC111	1979
Western Airlines	Terry London Rinehart	B727	1986

* Susan Hortsman was first hired by National in 1979, and would have been considered as the first woman flying for Pan Am when the two airlines merged. However Colleen Burgess is the first one hired by Pan Am after the merger.

** Mary Bush Shipko was hired by Hughes Airwest in 1976 before the merger to form Republic.

The People's Whale!
PEOPLExpress has interesting anectodes about its female crew. For example, did you know one of their pilots used to be a TWA flight attendant? It's Lynn Rippelmeyer, who became afterwards the first female Captain to fly the 747 trans-Atlantic (EWR-LGW). Beverly Burns, the first female pilot hired by the airline, shared the honors with Lynn, but on a trans-Continental flight (EWR-LAX), on a 747, too. Before joining PEOPLE, Lynn was part of the first all-female crew on a scheduled US airline, as she flew as a First Officer on an Air Illinois DHC-6 Twin Otter with Captain Emily Jones in 1978.

Very special pilots
This lead to many particularities, or, as the ISWAP (International Society of Women Airline Pilots) calls it in their website, the "firsts". The first flights with a crew composed entirely of women, for each airline. As an example, Canada 3000, a charter airline, made its first flight of that kind on a 757 from Toronto to Manchester. On board, Captain Nicole Sauvé and First Officer Linda Galipeau, and the 7 female flight attendants. And thinking that United had the nerve of flying the Caravelles "men-only"...!

Female pilots have also been involved in heroic events. Take Mimi Tompkins for instance. The first female First Officer hired by Aloha Airlines, in 1979, is onboard ill-fated flight 243. She becomes the first female Captain in 1988. Take a look at our movie review of this month.

Conclusion
You can find much more information on female pilots at the websites below. And remember: if next time you fly, you hear a woman's voice as she presents herself as the Captain, don't be surprised!

Links
If you have other URLs to add to this list, or to report a dead link, please contact us.

• International Society of Women Airline Pilots
• The Ninety-Nines Club
• ALPA - Biography and interview with Emily Warner
• Women in Aviation Resource Center (women-in-aviation.com)
• Women in Aviation International (wai.org)