The neon glow from Reno’s slot machines couldn’t match the glow of enthusiasm given off by the nearly 3,000 attendees at the 22nd annual Women In Aviation, Inc., conference Feb. 24-26, at the Grand Sierra Resort.

Mecca for all women of aviation — and for many men as well — if it’s about flying, it will be found at the WAI conference. Women aviators of today’s military, as well as women airline, corporate, private and student pilots and non-flying aviation personnel of all callings come to rub elbows with their peers — to absorb and learn and leave with new goals chalked on the horizon.

This was my 13th WAI conference overall. My first was in 1991. Of necessity, my time and interest went elsewhere from 1994 to 2001, but in 2002, after the publication of my first WASP book The Originals, I returned and haven’t missed a conference since. Most years, I have made an educational/historical presentation about some phase of the WASP.

This year, it was my pleasure to present WASP GOLD — a slide show documentary of the events on March 9 and 10, 2010, in Washington D.C., when the Women Airforce Service Pilots were awarded the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal for patriotic service during World War II.

Eleven WASP attended WAI this year and attended my talk so that they might relive the Big Day. WASP “kids” accompanied several of their mothers. I was particularly delighted to see my friends Terry and Kelly Rinehart — daughter and granddaughter of original WAFS Barbara Erickson “B.J.” London. Both are corporate pilots and Terry is retired from Delta Airlines.

I had the pleasure of hanging out at the Texas Woman’s University booth on the conference exhibit floor. I joined TWU Libraries Director Sherilyn Bird and Special Collections Coordinator Kimberly Johnson there. I’ve done so much of my research for all my WASP books at TWU. I was able to sell my four WASP books to visitors to the booth and could talk about the wealth of information available in the WASP Collection.

The WASP truly are the rock stars of aviation’s women today. The 250 or so still living range in age from 86 to 101.



Two WASP were inducted into this year’s Women in Aviation Pioneer Hall of Fame: Marty Wyall and Hazel Ah Ying Lee.

Marty, a graduate of the last WASP class (44-10), served as unofficial historian of the WASP from the early 1960s until Texas Woman’s University in Denton was selected in 1991 by the WASP to be the home of their Archives, the repository of their stories, papers and photos.

Marty stored WASP papers, photos and clippings in the garage on her Indiana farm and carefully tended them for 30 years. Had it not been for Marty’s efforts, much of the WASP history would have been lost. Marty also helped organized the first WASP reunion in 1969 in Cincinnati, was a key participant in the 1975 reunion in Reno, and served as WASP president 1996-1998. Two of her sons, Sumner (a Southwest Airlines pilot) and John, escorted her at the Awards banquet.

Hazel, one of two Chinese-American women to serve with the WASP, was honored posthumously. In 1932, Hazel became one of the first Chinese-American woman to earn a pilot's license. She was a member of WASP Class 43-4 and went on to ferry pursuit airplanes for the Army Air Forces’ Ferrying Division — only 134 women were so qualified.

Hazel lost her life in one of those pursuits. Landing a P-63 (Bell Kingcobra) in Great Falls Montana, November 23, 1944, she collided with another airplane also on final approach to land.

Her sister, Frances Tong, accepted Hazel’s Pioneer Hall of Fame plaque at the WAI banquet Saturday night. Frances also was in D.C. to accept Hazel’s Gold Medal and to lay her commemorative rose at the March 9 Memorial Service commemorating the 38 WASP who died in service during WWII. That service was held at the new Air Force Memorial.

Also inducted into the 2011 Pioneer Hall of Fame were: WAI founder and president Dr. Peggy Chabrian; AF Major General Susan Helms, Director of Plans and Policy for the U.S. Strategic Command, a flight test engineer and a former NASA astronaut; and Tammy Duckworth, Black Hawk pilot who lost her legs in the crash of her helicopter in Iraq. She is now the Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs for the Department of Veterans Affairs.



My article on original WAFS Helen Richards is schedule to run in the July issue of Aviation History Magazine. I hope you’ll check it out!

In 2004, I met and interviewed Helen’s husband, Don Prosser. He shared her papers, which included her ferrying orders from her WAFS/WASP days with the Ferrying Division, Air Transport Command.

Helen died in a mid-air collision in October 1976 while giving a biannual flight check.



WASP GOLD, my new PowerPoint presentation, is getting rave reviews from the groups I have shown it to — the latest being the WASP themselves.

It is the story of some 200 WASP — the youngest 86 years old — gathering in Washington D.C. March 9 & 10, 2010, to receive the Congressional Gold Medal given to honor these women’s patriotism in World War II.

The presentation contains my own photos from the two days; photos from the several Air Force Reserve photographers who covered the event; and eye-catching WASP portraits taken by professional photographer Bill Young — son of WASP Millie Young of Class 44-10.

I’m available to make this presentation to your group if your meeting space can handle PowerPoint. I bring my own computer. Call 937-434-5979 or e-mail Srick18153@aol.com.

Sarah Byrn Rickman is the author of:

The Originals (history of the WAFS — the first WASP squadron)

Nancy Love and the WASP Ferry Pilots of WWII (biography)

Nancy Batson Crews: Alabama’s First Lady of Flight (biography)

Flight From Fear (a WASP novel)