Aviatrix – Elinor Smith

Reading Aviatrix is a journey back in time that all who were there will find irresistible. For the later arrivals, it tells of the real beginning….Finally, we have a factual and detailed record of aviation’s most romantic period, by the top woman pilot of the era.” -H. A. Ottewill, Captain, U.S. Naval Reserve (Ret.) and Captain, TWA (Ret.).

In 1917, six-year-old Elinor Smith went up for her first airplane ride. From then on, she spent every spare moment hanging around the planes and fliers at Long Island’s Roosevelt Field – the site of many aviation firsts of that era – for her dream to make flying a career had begun. 

That was a revolutionary idea in those days. Flying was still in its infancy, and only a few women had managed to become licensed pilots, most of them supported by rich husbands. Even the top male pilots had to struggle to make a living in this newfangled industry. Determined to make her dream come true, Elinor soloed at the age of fifteen; a year later she became the youngest licensed pilot in the United States when Orville Wright signed her F.A.I. flying license.