For Wednesday's flight from Livermore to Moffett Field, Eleanor Wortz wore the same uniform and silver wings she wore as a 23-year-old member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots.
Posted on 06/02/2006 10:02:10 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
For Wednesday's flight from Livermore to Moffett Field, Eleanor Wortz wore the same uniform and silver wings she wore as a 23-year-old member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots.
They defied convention -- and defied gravity -- six decades ago when they became the first women in history to fly for the U.S. military as Women Airforce Service Pilots.
On Wednesday, three of the World War II aviation pioneers, now in their 80s and living in the Bay Area, made a short return flight.
Eleanor Wortz of Los Altos, Jean McFarland Koehler of Sunnyvale and Maggie Gee of Berkeley flew through crystal blue skies from Livermore to Moffett Field in a restored B-24 Liberator, like the ones they piloted as the unconventional flying ladies of World War II.
"It felt pretty good," said Wortz, 84, who emerged beaming from the plane's tiny hatch after the 23-minute hop. "It's been so long . . . I'd forgotten how it is."
Wortz was wearing the original skirted dress uniform with silver wings she wore as a 23-year-old flier. [WOW] She lamented that at 84, she could no longer pilot the plane herself on Wednesday, just ride in the flight deck.
"Flying is what I love to do and I couldn't," she said. "But it made you remember. I had two years of flying in the Air Force and it was a good life." Wortz was joined on the B-24 "Witchcraft" by her fellow WASP veterans Koehler, 87, and Gee, 82.
All three professed a love of flying as young girls during an era when few women entered a cockpit. It was only the exigencies of World War II, when pilots were growing scarce, that turned the military to women for help.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
For Wednesday's flight from Livermore to Moffett Field, Eleanor Wortz wore the same uniform and silver wings she wore as a 23-year-old member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots.
She looks cute and tough as nails.
God Bless them all.
HA! Sounds like something my grandma would say... :)
Former WASP pilots Maggie Gee, Jean McFarland Koehler and Eleanor Wortz stand next to a restored B-24 Liberator.
Eleanor Wortz, flanked by her sister, Jean Barrick, and Barrick's husband, retired Col. Mac Barrick, is escorted away from the plane after her adventure aboard the restored B-24.
The Liberator is one of the most beautiful aircraft ever produced. I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure that there were more Liberators made than any other aircraft. Ever.
I read a while back only six complete B-24 aircraft remain worldwide. Many of them were built at Ford's Willow Run plant near Detroit, Michigan. Near the end of World War II, a brand new B-24 was rolling out the door of the Willow Run plant every 56 minutes.
My father was a B-24 pilot with the 90th Bomb Group of the Fifth Air Force in the South Pacific.
The B-24 was a physically demanding aircraft to fly. Landing it often required the physical strength of both pilot and co-pilot. The B-24 carried a crew of ten into combat.
interesting...
Neat. I was just helping a friend the other day find some links like this for her father, who flew B-24s during WWII. Even though the B-24 outperformed the B-17 in pretty much every category, I still have to admit my fondness for the Flying Fortress. It has a grace and beauty that is hard to explain, but you just know from looking at it that that is how an airplane is supposed to look.
Cool! What does she fly?
Even more so for the B-29.
I think it was the most-produced US warplane.
I recall reading that Germany made over 30,000 Me109's and Russia made over 33,000 Il-2's. But I could be wrong.
Isn't that the truth (about the sound)? The B-17 flew several times over my son's baseball game yesterday evening in Mountain View. There's nothing like the sound of those Wright Cyclone radial engines, is there? One plane gives me goose-bumps. Could you imagine an armada of 1,000 planes headed for Germany?
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