Woman Aviation

This powerful and ultimately uplifting book honors the heroes of 9/11. It also offers common ground to those in search of meaning and purpose in a world that was changed by the events of that day, both within and outside of the aviation industry. It gives Americans from all walks of life a road map to identify their own resiliency and strengths in a time of crisis and teaches how to live fully again after any loss in life.

Tracey Curtis-Taylor has created headlines around the world with three epic flights in a 1942 Boeing Stearman biplane. Paying homage to two historic female aviators, she flew from Cape Town to Goodwood in 2013, from London to Australia in 2015 and, two years later, completed a transcontinental flight across the USA, after surviving a plane crash during the expedition. But her daring exploits came at a huge personal cost. Tracey tells, in breathtaking detail, the remarkable story of how she overcame extreme adversity to complete her three epic journeys.

Getting a pilot's license was the furthest thing from her mind - until an ex-RAF instructor suggested that she wasn't competent to do so. The thing is, he could be right. Sylvia has just a few weeks to prove that she can fly as well as any man. You Fly Like a Woman tells the story of one woman's search for confidence as she stumbles into a man's world.

In 1993, U.S. women earned the right to fly in combat, but the full story of how it happened is largely unknown. The Fly Girls Revolt chronicles the actions of a band of women who overcame decades of discrimination and prevailed against bureaucrats, chauvinists, anti-feminists, and even other military women. Drawing on extensive research, interviews with women who served in the 1970s and 1980s, and her personal experiences in the Air Force, Eileen Bjorkman weaves together a tale of the women who fought for the right to enter combat and be treated as equal partners in the U.S. military.

Before she traveled the country speaking out against discrimination, Bessie was a little girl with a big imagination that took her to the sky, through the clouds, and past the birds. Knocking down barriers one by one, Bessie endured racism and grueling training to become the first Black female pilot and an inspiration to Mae Jemison, Josephine Baker, and many more influential people of color for years to come.

Before Amelia Earhart (1897-1939) became a world-famous pilot, she was a little tomboy from Kansas with a taste for adventure. When she visited an airfield and took a short plane ride, she knew she had to be a pilot. She signed up for flying lessons and cropped her hair short so that the other pilots would take her seriously. She became the first woman to make a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

Dorothy Lucas yearned to discover all that she was capable of. After the devastating news of Pearl Harbor, her brothers joined the World War II war effort, but Dorothy wanted to do her part, too. So, she enlisted to serve as a Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP). After hours of flight school and roaring engines, Dorothy and her fellow WASPs risked their lives towing targets in the air for the male fighter pilots in training. Through many mechanical scares and smoke-filled cockpits, Dorothy remained brave and committed to her job - defying gravity and defying the odds.

Emma Lilian Todd's mind was always soaring—she loved to solve problems. Lilian tinkered and fiddled with all sorts of objects, turning dreams into useful inventions. As a child, she took apart and reassembled clocks to figure out how they worked. As an adult, typing up patents at the U.S. Patent Office, Lilian built the inventions in her mind, including many designs for flying machines. However, they all seemed too impractical. Lilian knew she could design one that worked.

Amelia Earhart refused to accept no for an answer; she dared to do what no one had ever done before and became the first woman to fly a plane all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. This audiobook follows her from childhood to her first flying lessons and onward to her multi-record-breaking career as a pilot.

In the 1930s, most girls were happy playing with dolls. But one girl, Betty Skelton, liked playing with airplanes, watching them fly around outside, and even flying airplanes herself! She lived for an adventure - in the air, the water, and on land - and nothing could stop her, especially not being a girl. When Betty Skelton was young there weren't many women flying airplanes or racing cars, but she wouldn't let that stop her. She was always ready to take on a challenge, and she loved to have fun.