Blanche Noyes, American Aviatrix

Blanche Noyes (June 23, 1900 - October 6, 1981) was an American pioneering female aviatrix. She took one lesson from her husband, soloed after four hours of training and received her pilot's license in 1929. That same year Noyes entered the inaugural Women's Air Derby, one of twenty competitors attempting to fly from Santa Monica to Cleveland. Along the way, her plane caught fire in mid-air, so she set down, put out the fire, made repairs, resumed the race, and placed fourth in the heavy class. She was a demonstration pilot for Standard Oil in 1931 and flew with various organizations until her husband died in a crash in 1935. In 1936, she teamed up as co-pilot to Louise Thaden and won the Bendix Trophy Race in the first year women were allowed to compete against men. In 1936, she joined the Air Marking Group of the Bureau of Air Commerce, funded by the WPA. The group's objective was to aid aerial navigation by writing the name of the nearest town at 15-mile intervals, on the roofs of prominent buildings or on the ground in white paint. With America's entry into WWII in 1941, for security reasons, the Noyes team had to black out the roughly 13, 000 sites they had marked. After the war, as head of the air marking division of the Civil Aeronautics Administration, she oversaw their restoration and added further navigational aids. She died in 1981 at the age of 81. Harris and Ewing, August 14, 1937

Picture No

12697510

Media ID

47704882

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4500px x 2949px (2.4MB)

Credit

LOC/Science Source/Mary Evans

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