Tag Archives: Airman Certificate

1 August 1911

Miss Harriet Quimby, 1911, (Leslie Jones Collection, Boston Public Library)
Miss Harriet Quimby, 1911, (Leslie Jones Collection, Boston Public Library)

1 August 1911: After 33 flight lessons over a four-month period at the Moisant Aviation School at Hempstead, Long Island, New York, Harriet Quimby took her flight test and became the first woman to receive a pilot’s license, Number 37, from the Aero Club of America. She was “America’s First Lady of the Air.”

She was well-known throughout the United States and Europe, and wore a purple satin flying suit.

On 16 April 1912 she became only the second pilot to fly across the English Channel when she flew from Dover to Calais in 59 minutes with a Blériot monoplane.

Eleven months after receiving her pilot’s license, 1 July 1912, Harriet Quimby was killed when she fell from her Blériot XI during a flying demonstration at Squantum, Massachusetts.

Harriet Quimby and her Blériot XI
Harriet Quimby and her Blériot XI. (Library of Congress)

© 2015, Bryan R. Swopes

16 May 1923

Amelia Earhart's pilot's license.
Amelia Earhart’s pilot’s license. (National Portrait Gallery)

16 May 1923: The National Aeronautic Association of the United States of America grants pilot’s license No. 6017 to Miss Amelia Mary Earhart.

The airman’s certificate is on display at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, on loan from the 99’s Museum of Women Pilots, Oklahoma City, OK.

© 2015, Bryan R. Swopes

1 May 1930

Amelia Earhart's transport pilot license. (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections )
Amelia Earhart’s Transport Pilot’s License. (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections )

1 May 1930: The Aeronautics Branch, Department of Commerce, issues Transport Pilot’s License No. 5716 to Amelia Mary Earhart.

The certificate is in the collection of the Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections.

© 2015, Bryan R. Swopes