The Liberty Gazette
August 18, 2020
Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely
The child knew at an early age that flying would be the thing. By age eight, this child had the parents convinced, and the house was soon filled with books on aviation. The bug caught on and the whole family took flying lessons. And the little stinker soloed an airplane for the first time at age 12. A natural pilot. The first legal solo came on the child’s 16th birthday, because that’s what the FAA says is the minimum age. There was no turning back, but there were roadblocks, because the child was a girl, and girls weren’t supposed to fly.
But she grew up to be National Aviation Hall of Famer Betty Skelton Frankman, known as “The First Lady of Firsts.” Before she passed in 2011 at the age of 85, Betty had grown from the small girl who hopped rides in Stearmans at the local airport to qualifying to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots at age 17. Unfortunately, the youngest age allowed in the WASP was eighteen and a half, and the organization disbanded before she reached that age. So, Betty went on to earn her commercial pilot certificate at age 18, and then became a flight instructor and added multi-engine ratings. Nothing stopping this woman!
No doubt the limiting mindset of the day was a great frustration. But she never gave up. One day, her dad was planning an airshow as a fundraiser for their local Jaycees. Betty volunteered to learn aerobatics and be the show’s star performer. She learned loops and rolls in a Fairchild PT-19 and two weeks later borrowed the plane for the show.
She’d found her niche, and no one could tell her no, unlike the airlines and military. In 1946, she bought an aerobatic airplane to start her career in airshows and competition aerobatics, a Great Lakes biplane. In it, she gained her first title as International Feminine Aerobatic Champion in 1948.
Then she discovered the sleek little Pitts. It took months of convincing to get the man-owner to sell it to her, but once she strapped that little single-seater on, she won herself two more championships, in 1949 and 1950. “Little Stinker” is now hanging upside-down from the ceiling of the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport.
Betty was the first to do a propeller-ribbon-cutting—from 10’ above the ground. Inverted. She subsequently set several land speed records and drove in a NASCAR race. Although her gender prohibited her from becoming an astronaut, she underwent the same physical and psychological tests as the original Mercury seven, who adopted her as one of their own, calling her “Seven and a half.”
She still holds more combined aircraft and automotive records than anyone in history (17) and was inducted into the International Aerobatic Hall of Fame, the International Council of Air Shows Hall of Fame, and the Corvette Hall of Fame. Each year the United States National Aerobatic Championships honors the highest placing female pilot with the “Betty Skelton First Lady of Aerobatics” award.
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