3/19/2010
 Sullivan Family Photo
Elinor Smith was one of the last remaining pilots from the incredible Barnstorming days of Aviation. She set records for speed, altitude, and endurance as a mere teenager. The daughter of Vaudeville singers, she received flying lessons at age 10 from none other than Clyde "Upside-Down" Pangborn, and at age 15 she soloed her father's Waco 9. Three months later, she set the official light plane altitude record of 11,889 feet with no oxygen ! She was granted an FAI license which was finalized by Orville Wright, and in Sept. 1927 she became the youngest licensed pilot in the United States. In 1929, she crippled the current endurance record of 17 hours by soloing a Bellanca CH for 26 1/2 hours. One month later she set a Women's Speed Record in a Curtiss military aircraft of 190.8 mph. Also in 1929 she set the first record for endurance flying with mid-air refueling. In 1930, still only 18 years old, she set the World Altitude record of 27,419 feet in a 6 seat Bellanca. But in light of all her records, she is most noted for a stunt she was dared into. In October 1928, she flew a Waco 10 under all 4 bridges on the East River in New York, and is apparently the only person to ever do so. She had to dodge several ships in the process and just to give it a little flair, she flew knife-edge under the last one, the Brooklyn Bridge, then circled the Statue of Liberty twice. Then NY Mayor, Jimmy Walker smoothed things over with the Commerce Department and her license was suspended for only 15 days. It was this stunt that earned her the nickname "The Flying Flapper of Freeport". Unfortunately those days are gone forever, the early days of aviation when so many things had yet to be tried. Pilots like Ms. Smith, and Jimmy Doolittle, Amelia Earhart, and Charles Lindbergh, all had the belief in their skills that pushed them to achieve greater limits and evolve Aviation into the vast Industry it is today.
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Today in Aviation History :
September 4, 1936 -- Louise Thaden becomes the 1st woman to win the prestigious coast-to-coast Bendix trophy race.
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Aviation Weather Links
www.nws.noaa.gov/
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