Women Aviators (21 page)

Attending her first air show in 1983, Patty watched the aerobatics in awe. She was determined to learn how to perform those maneuvers herself. Within two years, she had landed a spot on the US Aerobatic Team. She liked how aerobatics demanded 100 percent of her concentration; she has described it as being one with the plane.

Patty became the first female to win the National Aerobatic Championships in 1991. It was then that she realized that flying was a double-edged sword. As a woman, she was under more scrutiny. Determined to prove herself, she went on to win the competition two more times. Today, she is still the only woman to have won the National Aerobatic championships three times.
For this feat, she was honored by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. Her airplane, the Extra 260, is featured in the museum, right behind Amelia Earhart's airplane.

Patty's aerobatic career has spanned the globe; she has traveled to places such as Iceland and Russia, where she trained with the Russian aerobatic team. Her experience includes flight testing for aircraft manufacturers and working as a stunt pilot for film and television. Currently the only female member of the Motion Picture Pilots Association, Patty doubles for male and female actors. In television, she has done work for both educational television (on the Discovery Channel and the Learning Channel) and popular television
(Lois and Clark).
Movie work and commercials are also part of her stunt-flying resume.

Patty has also found a way to use her aviation skills and talent to give back. She regularly travels to East Africa to train antipoaching pilots in the Kenya Wildlife Service to help protect Kenya's wildlife. Elephants are particularly at risk because of the demand for ivory, and the most successful method of deterring poachers is air patrol. Since she started the training program, pilot accidents have decreased by half, and the elephant population has increased. The program is supported in part by the Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation. Charles Lindbergh was a supporter of wildlife and enjoyed visiting Africa.

After 12 years of winning practically every award for aerobatics, Patty retired from competing. She found a new way to use her skills: Patty joined Cal Fire as an aerial firefighter. The US Forest Service requires firefighting pilots to have 800 pilot-in-command flight hours, with 100 of those hours completed during the past year. Fire pilots must have ratings in multien-gine flying, instrument rating, and commercial flying.

Aerial firefighting is a demanding profession. During the season, a pilot works six days on, one day off. You can be called out at any point and must be ready to fly.

As an air-attack pilot, Patty flies an OV-10 Bronco to fight fires in California. Flying through smoke and flames demands all her aerobatic skills and more. She and an air tactical group supervisor are often first on the scene, surveying the landscape and determining the best methods to attack a wildfire. They communicate their findings to ground firefighting crews and other air crews. Patty also broadcasts warnings to airports for other pilots to stay away. She hopes to one day be ready for tanker flying.

Tankers, which fly low to the ground, were first used to put out fires with water or chemical retardants in the 1950s. Old military planes were modified for this purpose. Tanker planes that were specifically developed to fight fires, like the Canadair CL-215, have features such as doors in the belly of the plane that drop water on fires. Some can even scoop up to 1,400 gallons (5,300 liters) of water from nearby lakes in seconds.

“Tanker flying is edgy,” Patty explained in an interview, “because you are low and in the smoke in places you've never been before. Everything is totally different down there: trees sticking up everywhere, small flames, and no perspective. When there is a lot of wind, it can be really ugly too, but it's cool, totally cool! I love it.”

At the peak of wildfire season, Patty may fly up to seven hours per day. The people of California depend on the shiny red-and-white airplanes that come to their rescue when wildfires strike. Patty's airplane and the tankers are kept ready to go. When the buzzers sound at the bases, the crews must quickly slide into their flight suits and be up in the sky in minutes.

Firefighting keeps her busy and on call for four to five months per year. Patty saves aerobatic air shows for after fire season. But whether performing for audiences or fighting fires, she gives flying everything she's got.

O
N
J
ULY 29, 1963,
Ingrid Pedersen took off from Fairbanks, Alaska, in a red-and-white Cessna 205, nicknamed the
Snow Goose.
Originally, she and her husband, Einar, were to leave in spring, but they had been delayed. She had her hands full trying to pilot the small plane over the North Pole. They had replaced four of the seats with extra fuel tanks for the 2,400-mile trip (3,900 kilometers) across the Arctic.

The fuel tanks, fuel, and emergency equipment added more than 700 pounds (320 kilograms) to the airplane. This weight made the back of the plane heavy, affecting the balance. Ingrid thought her
Snow Goose
was more like an overfilled goose. She compensated for the weight and balance by flying with the nose down for the first few hours.

But the extra weight also made the plane's high-pitched stall warning go off for almost an hour. Ingrid did her best to ignore it and focus on flying. When the landscape is all white as it is in the polar regions, pilots can become disoriented. Ellen Paneok, an Anchorage bush pilot, compared it to flying inside a milk bottle.

Einar stayed busy with navigating and taking pictures of the ice for his research. He had brought five cameras in addition to navigational equipment. Magnetic compasses are useless when flying over the North Pole, so Einar had to use other tools, including the sun. When he worked for Scandinavian Airlines, he had developed a system for polar navigation using grids, charts, and a sextant. One of his tools was a telescope-like gadget called a drift sight. When he placed it against the window of the plane, he could calculate the wind speed, which allowed him to evaluate how the wind affected the plane's speed.

When enough fuel had burned off, the
Snow Goose
became easier to handle. Ingrid noticed a blue ice island known as T-3. Ice
islands or icebergs are classified according to shape or size. T-3 has a tabular shape, with steep sides and a flat top like a plateau. Ingrid thought the island, though beautiful, looked lonely in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, covered with a layer of shifting ice.

When Ingrid got close to Spitsbergen, the largest of the populated Norwegian islands that border the Arctic Ocean, it became obvious that the
Snow Goose
was collecting too much ice. She dropped the plane to about 500 feet (150 meters) to melt the ice, watching as chunks of it fell off.

After 21 hours of flying, the Pedersens landed on Station Nord in Greenland. After a rest, they flew on to Bodo, Norway, another 11 hours away, making Ingrid the first woman to fly successfully over the North Pole.

For her achievement, Ingrid received the Amelia Earhart Medal from the Alaska Ninety-Nines and a Gold Plaque from the Royal Swedish Aero Club. Although her record flight was big news in Alaska and the countries of Scandinavia, where she was from, it didn't get a lot of attention in other locations. Since the dawn of aviation, there had been many first flights.

People in Alaska, particularly pilots, know how dangerous flying over the North Pole can be. It's a long flight during which traditional navigation doesn't work. On clear days, the line of the horizon aids pilots by breaking up the white landscape. But hazardous weather can occur at any time and create even worse whiteout conditions. Modern navigational aids such as GPS help, but it remains a difficult trip.