Louise Thaden
|
Louise Thaden (1905-1979) |
|
Louise Thaden (1905-1979) |
Iris Louise McPhetridge Thaden (
November 12,
1905 –
November 9,
1979) was an aviation pioneer, holder of numerous aviation records, and the first woman to win the
Bendix Trophy.
Louise McPhetridge was born in
Bentonville, Arkansas and attended Bentonville public schools. McPhetridge attended the
University of Arkansas in
Fayetteville, Arkansas from
1921 to
1925 as a journalism and physical education major.
In
1926 McPhetridge was working for the J.H.J. Turner Coal Co. where one of her main customers was the
Travel Air Corporation in
Wichita, Kansas owned by
Walter Beech. Beech liked McPhetridge and offered her a job as a sales representative in
San Francisco, California which she accepted. Part of her salary included free pilot's lessons and she earned her pilot's certificate in
1927. She was the first female pilot to be licensed by the state of
Ohio.
McPhetridge met
Herbert Thaden who was a former
United States Army pilot and engineer who worked on developing the first American all-metal aircraft. McPhetridge and Herbert Thaden were married in San Francisco in the summer of
1928. By
1929 Louise Thaden had become only the fourth woman to hold a transport pilot rating.
Thaden rapidly became a major figure in the aviation world and set many world performance records and won many major flying events. In 1929 she became the first pilot to hold the women's altitude, endurance, and speed records in light planes simultaneously. Thaden set the women's altitude record in December of 1928 with a mark of 20,260 feet. In March of 1929 she set the women's endurance record with a flight of 22 hours, 3 minutes, 12 seconds.
Thaden was a friend and rival of pioneer aviators
Amelia Earhart,
Pancho Barnes, and
Blanche Noyes. Thaden defeated her colleagues in the first
Women's Air Derby in 1929. The Air Derby was a transcontinental race from
Santa Monica, California to
Cleveland, Ohio which was the site of the
National Air Races that year. Earhart damaged her aircraft at
Yuma, Arizona, Barnes became lost and flew into Mexico and damaged her plane attempting to get back on course, and Noyes suffered an in-flight fire over Texas.
In
1930 Thaden went to work as public relations director of
Pittsburgh Aviation Industries and became the director of the Women's Division of the
Penn School of Aeronautics. That same year Thaden and Earhart founded an international organization for women pilots called the
Ninety-Nines. Thaden turned down the presidency of the organization but served as the treasurer and vice-president. The Ninety-Nine organization still exists. In
1991 astronaut
Eileen Collins carried Thaden's flying helmet into space on the
space shuttle to honor her achievements and the early women pioneer's of flight. In
1935 Phoebe Omlie, another pioneer female aviator, asked Thaden to become a field representative for the
National Air Marking Program.
In
1936 she teamed up with
Blanche Noyes as her co-pilot and won the
Bendix Trophy Race in the first year women were allowed to compete against men. They set a new world record of 14 hours, 55 minutes from
New York City to
Los Angeles, California. In their astonishing victory the two women flew a
Beech C17R Staggerwing biplane and defeated twin-engine planes specifically designed for racing.
Laura Ingalls, another
aviatrix, came in second by 45 minutes flying a
Lockheed Orion. First prize was $4,500 and they also won the $2,500 prize for a woman finishing.
Time magazine wrote on September 14, 1936:
To Pilots Thaden & Noyes the $7,000 prize money was far less gratifying than the pleasure of beating the men. Among the first ten U.S. women to earn transport licenses, they have for years been front-line fighters in aviation's "battle of the sexes." A fuzzy-haired blonde of 30, Mrs. Thaden has been flying since 1927, has held the women's speed, altitude and endurance records, is the mother of a 6-year-old son. She and Flyer Noyes both work regularly as air-marking pilots for the Department of Commerce. Short, brunette Mrs. Noyes is better known as the only pilot ever to fly John D. Rockefeller Sr. In the National Air Races, men contestants have always patronized women, in 1934 ousted them altogether. Smilingly observed Pilots Thaden and Noyes last week when they found they had won one of the two most important events of the Races: "Well, that's a surprise! We expected to be the cow's tail."
For her achievements Thaden won aviation's highest honor given to women, the
Harmon Trophy.
Thaden teamed up with
Frances Marsalis and set another endurance record by flying a
Curtiss Thrush biplane over
Long Island, New York for 196 hours. The pair made seventy-eight air-to-air refueling maneuvers. Food and water were lowered to the two by means of a rope from another aircraft. The event gained national attention and the pair made a series of live radio broadcasts from the aircraft.
In
1937 she became the National Secretary of the
National Aeronautics Association. Just prior to her retirement she returned to
Beech Aircraft Corporation as a factory representative and demonstration pilot.
Thaden retired from competition in
1938. She worked for a time with the
Bureau of Air Commerce to promote the creation of airfields. She also wrote her memoirs,
High, Wide and Frightened soon after her retirement. In addition to her memoirs she wrote numerous newspaper and magazine articles dealing with aviation issues. Thaden stated that women were
"innately better pilots than men".
During
World War II Thaden attained the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel with the
Civil Air Patrol.
Thaden died of a heart attack at
High Point, North Carolina.
In
1951 the Bentonville, Arkansas airport was renamed
Louise Thaden Field in her honor. A building at the
National Staggerwing Museum in
Tullahoma, Tennessee is also named for Thaden in
1974.
Quotes
A pilot who says he has never been frightened in an airplane is, I'm afraid, lying.There is a decided prejudice on the part of the general public against being piloted by a woman, and as great an aversion, partially because of this, by executives of those companies whose activities require employing pilots.To a psychoanalyst, a woman pilot, particularly a married one with children, must prove an interesting as well as an inexhaustible subject. Torn between two loves, emotionally confused, the desire to fly an incurable disease eating out your life in the slow torture of frustration -- she cannot be a simple, natural personality.If you have flown, perhaps you can understand the love a pilot develops for flight. It is much the same emotion a man feels for a woman, or a wife for her husband.*
"The Major Trophy Races of the Golden Age of Air Racing" by David H. Onkst,
US Centennial of Flight Commission, retrieved January 6, 2006
*
"The Bendix Trophy",
Air Racing History, retrieved January 6, 2006
