WOMEN IN THE AIR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 816, 9 November 1929, Page 21

WOMEN IN THE AIR

some; famous pioneers WHAT of the FUTURE> More than half the passengers ill cross Channel air liners are women, notes » n English correspondent. One rompany states that it has carried jnnre than 50,000 women in the past five years. Women, in fact, are “finding their feet in the air." In fairness to the unfair sex it must be pointed out that üblicity always attends a novelty. If Captain OUey takes a plane to Le Bourget a few hundred times a year, that is not news. If a woman does it nice, that is news. Let me hasten to add that just as Miss Helen Wills could beat most men it lawn tennis, so there are already women pilots who are every whit as capable as first-rate airmen. The records of these women prove it Lady Bailey, for example, has ilown nearly four miles high in a little “Moth” light plane. Lady Heath has done excellent work in, and tor, flying. Miss Amelia Earhart, who flew the Atlantic, is now assistant traffic manger in Colonel Lindbergh’s Transcontinental Air Transport Company in America. Another American, Miss Bobbie Trout, is a chief test pilot, a post said to be unique for women. The Dutchess of Bedford, aged 6,1, takes a plane for a day's shooting. If she feels like taking a little more strenuous exercise she flies to India and back in a week. Miss Hoare-Wood, aged 70, “hops” to Cologne to take a glance at the cathedral, staying about an hour, and when she is stared at like a museum specimen on her return remarks indignantly, “There is nothing extraordinary about me. I am quite an ordinary woman.” But apart from these exceptional cases, is flying a suitable vocation for women generally? Lady Bailey says! ‘‘Before long we shall pilot our husbands over to the Continent for the week-end after a week of hard business,” (The italics r.re mine.) Lady heath says: “The airplane, with its delicacy of touch, is an ideal machine for women to handle.” Men are divided la their opinions, but the general feeling seems to be in opposition. Captain Barnard, while agreeing that a woman’s touch may be more delicate, discounts the real importance of this in flying. 'The mind of the pilot,” he says, “is the only thins that matters.” The next few years should show pretty conclusively who is right. But i think the “noes” have it. Does not motor-racing supply an analogy? The pastime has been popular for a good many years, but are there many names like Violette Cordery inscribed in the annals of Montlhery?