Katherine Stinson (February 14, 1891 – July 8, 1977) was an American aviation pioneer who, in 1912, became the fourth woman in the United States to earn the FAI pilot certificate. She set flying records for aerobatic maneuvers, distance, and endurance. She was the first female pilot employed by the U.S. Postal Service and the first civilian pilot to fly the mail in Canada. She was also one of the first pilots to ever fly at night and the first female pilot to fly in Canada and Japan.
Early life and flight training
Stinson was born on February 14, 1891, at Fort Payne, Alabama to Edward Sr. and Emma Stinson.[1] Edward Sr. left the family, leaving Emma alone to raise Stinson and her younger siblings Edward Jr., Marjorie, and John (Jack). Emma moved the family to Jackson, Mississippi, where Stinson attended high school.[2] She excelled at music and dreamed of being a concert pianist. After she graduated from high school, the family moved to Pine Bluff, Arkansas.[2]
Stinson learned to drive the family flivver at the age of 14. In 1911, she took her first flight aloft in a hot-air balloon in Kansas City.[3] Smitten by the flying bug, Stinson sold her piano to help pay for flying lessons. Stinson went to St. Louis to take flight lessons from Tony Jannus, who allowed her to fly only as a passenger.[4] She then took flying lessons from the well-known aviator Max Lillie, a pilot for the Wright Brothers, who initially refused to teach her because she was female. However, Stinson was able to solo the Wright B, after only four hours of instruction,[5] on July 13, 1912, at Cicero Field.[6]
She was the fourth woman in the United States to obtain a pilot's certificate, which she earned on July 24, 1912, at the age of 21.[7]
Stunt flying and world records
Aviatrix Katherine Stinson racing the 1916 Indy 500 champion Dario Resta
In 1915, the Stinson family established the Stinson Municipal Airport and the Stinson School of Flying. Emma managed the school, Katherine financed it, Eddie worked as a mechanic, and Marjorie flight instructed.[6][5]
In March 1915, the famous Lincoln Beachey died in a crash in San Francisco, and Stinson acquired the rotary engine from his wrecked plane, rebuilt it, and used it in her plane.[2]
Gnome Gamma engine and Katherine Stinson doing maintenance in Japan on September 3, 1917
Stinson began exhibition flying and became known as the "Flying Schoolgirl" and "America's Sweetheart of the Air."[8] On July 18, 1915, at Cicero Field in Chicago, Illinois, Stinson performed a loop (a year after Lydia Zvereva became the first woman aviator to do so[9]), and went on to perform this feat some 500 times without a single accident.[10] She also became one of the first pilots to ever fly at night.[5] Adding to her night flying experience, she flew over Los Angeles with flares attached to the plane and spelled out "CAL", becoming the first nighttime sky-writer.[5] In another publicity stunt on May 6, 1916, Stinson flew her plane in a race with Dario Resta, the 1916 Indianapolis 500 champion.
In 1917, Stinson made a six-month tour of China and Japan, becoming one of the first females to fly in Asia.[3][5] The Japanese gave her the name "Air Queen".[5] On December 11, 1917, Stinson flew 610 miles from San Diego to San Francisco, setting a new American non-stop distance record.[5]
During exhibition flights in Canada, Stinson became the first civilian to fly the mail in Canada on a flight from Calgary to Edmonton, Alberta, in 1918.[11]
All of her stunt flying was done in aircraft using the Wright control system, which uses two side-mounted levers for pitch and roll, with top-mounted controls for throttle and yaw.[8]
U.S. airmail service
After the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, the government prohibited civilian flying to direct all aviation resources to the Army and Navy for the war effort.[8] This caused the closure of the Stinson School in 1917. Stinson was allowed to fly a Curtiss JN-4D "Jenny" and a Curtiss Stinson-Special (a single-seat version of the JN aircraft built to her specifications)[12] for fundraising for the American Red Cross. The fledgling U.S. Postal Air Service was the only non-military flying operation allowed by the government and the only other venue for Stinson to fly. In 1918, Stinson approached Benjamin Lipsner, superintendent of the Post Office Department airmail operations, about undertaking a long-distance mail service flight from Chicago to New York City as a publicity stunt.[8] She encountered strong headwinds on the flight and flew non-stop from Chicago to Binghamton, New York, where she had to stop for fuel.[13] The airplane flipped over on landing in a field and took several days to repair. Stinson then flew from Binghamton to New York City, completing the mail route.[8]
Unable to find stable aviation work, she applied to Lipsner once again, but this time as a regular mail service pilot. She was hired and assigned to the New York City-Philadelphia route. On her first trip, she followed her instructor, veteran airmail pilot Maurice Newton, down to Philadelphia. He showed her the landmarks, emergency landing fields, and other pertinent tips for the route. The following day he followed her back to New York City to make sure she had the route mastered. The press mistakenly reported this as she had beat her instructor back to New York City in a race. This reporting caused animosity at work, and she quit the mail service after the one round-trip.[8] Stinson then left for Paris to be an ambulance driver for the Red Cross during WWI, ending her aviation career.[8]
Later life
The weather and wartime conditions in Europe affected her health, and she came down with tuberculosis. Returning from the war, she went to the New York Sanitarium and then to the dry climate of New Mexico in 1920 to help combat the disease. Stinson's tuberculosis diminished after four years.[5] In 1927, Stinson married ex-army aviator Miguel Antonio Otero Jr., a district judge and son of the former territorial governor of New Mexico.[14] They raised four adopted children.[8] Stinson worked as an award winning architect[8] and Pueblo style home designer for many years in Santa Fe, New Mexico.[14] One of the houses she designed belonged to anthropologist Sallie Wagner in the 1970s.[15]
Rogers, Mary Beth; Smith, Sherry A.; Scott, Janelle D. (1983). We Can Fly: Stories of Katherine Stinson and other Gutsy Texas Women. Austin, TX: Texas Foundation for Women's Resources. ISBN9780936650029. OCLC8930327.
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