Adrenaline Rush (Aviation for Women May/June 2022)
I recently had the opportunity to fly with my teen idol, Patty Wagstaff—the first woman to win the U.S. National Aerobatic Championship. While the poster of her on my wall back then certainly fueled my passion for aviation, I never imagined I’d meet her one day, much less fly with her. It was a dream come true.
In preparation for my ‘Confidence Course – Upset Recognition and Recovery Training’ at Patty Wagstaff Aviation Safety in Saint Augustine, Florida, I reviewed aerodynamics and the aerobatics I’d learned in Navy flight training. I also pulled her memoir, Fire and Air, off my shelf after carrying it around for over a decade but not finding the time to read it. She came alive through words on the page before I met her in person.
This speaks to the power and permanence of books as a medium for sharing our stories. We are so fortunate to have instant access to role models at our fingertips who share little bits of their journeys along the way—but those social media posts quickly get lost in the noise. A book like Patty’s, published in 1997, stands the test of time and weaves those moments together in a full character arc that provides a deeper understanding of who that person really is. Fire and Air sat there all those years, waiting patiently for me. Then, like stepping through a portal, it transported me to Patty’s heyday as an aerobatic champion. Her story is just as inspirational now as that poster was to me at sixteen. I hope for a sequel about all the incredible things she’s accomplished in aviation since.
Another motivational story that will stand the test of time is Cecilia Aragon’s Flying Free: My Victory over Fear to Become the First Latina US National Aerobatic Champion. Patty and Cecilia’s membership on the U.S. team overlapped in the early 1990s, and it is wonderful to have the addition of Cecilia’s perspective among the cannon of books featuring women in aviation.
Cecilia is the daughter of Chilean and Filipina parents. Her accomplishments stand on their own but are even more inspiring in the context of the severe discrimination and harassment she experienced as the child of immigrants growing up in the Midwest. In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month in May, the Aviatrix Book Club will discuss Flying Free. We’d love for you to join in the discussions, but if life’s too busy right now, no worries—her story will be there for you when you’re ready, just as Fire and Air was for me.
Aerobatics have been such an integral part of aviation since its earliest days that you’ll find these mesmerizing feats in many aviation stories. Here are a couple of novels that feature aerobatic flying as a central theme:
The Aviatrix, by Violet Marsh, features Mattie McAdams, who longs to perform daring stunts in her family’s 1920s flying circus, but the men in her life stand in her way―including, Leo Ward. Mattie joins a female-dominated flying circus, kicking off a tantalizing aerial dance as the she and Leo attempt to one-up each other in the skies across America while romance blooms between them.
An Impossible Distance to Fall, by Miriam McNamara, is a young adult lesbian romance set in 1930, featuring wing-walking Birdie Williams who ‘falls’ for aerobatic pilot, June.
And for the little ones, the picture book biography Daredevil: The Daring Life of Betty Skelton, by Meghan McCarthy, celebrates the record-breaking adventures of the ‘First Lady of Firsts’.
If you have a story to tell, but don’t know where to start, check out the Aviatrix Writers’ Room on the Aviatrix Book Review [now Literary Aviatrix] website.
Blue skies, and happy reading!
