Women in Aviation & Space History
  • First Female Pilots Per Country
  • Women Breakthroughs Per Category
  • Centennial Legacy

Bessica Medlar Raiche – USA

  • Women Aviation Breakthroughs
Bessica Medlar Raiche

Born in Wisconsin, Bessica Medlar Raiche (1875 – 1932) was a proto-feminist. She drove an automobile and wore bloomers. She was also a musician, a painter, and a linguist, and participated in swimming and shooting.

She married François Raiche and together, the newlyweds built the pieces of a Wright type biplane in their living room and assembled it in their yard. On September 16, 1910, in her homemade flyer, Bessica Raiche made the first solo airplane flight by a woman in the United States and became the first woman to solo in an airplane she built worldwide. Bessica and François Raiche went on to build two more airplanes as part of their successful cottage-industry aviation engineering business, the French-American Aeroplane Company.

In 1920, the Raiche’s lived in California. Bessica was a qualified physician, one of the first women specialists in obstetrics and gynecology in the U.S., and Frank was practicing as a lawyer.

1910 - 1919
July 25, 2015 Centennial Team

Post navigation

Marie Marvingt – France → ← Marylise Ben Haïm – Algeria

Perpepuate the Legacy

Fly It Forward

Recent Bios

Virginie Guyot – France

Virginie Guyot – France

Born in Angers, France, Virginie Guyot (1976 – ) went on a discovery flight when she was 12 years old. Thereafter, she decides to become a pilot. She goes to […]

Eileen Collins – USA

Eileen Collins – USA

Collins’s parents were immigrants from Ireland. As a child, Eileen Collins (1956 – ) expressed an interest both in space flight and in being a pilot. After graduating from Elmira […]

Barbara Harmer – England

Barbara Harmer – England

Born in Bognor Regis, England, Barbara Harmer (1954 – 2011) left school aged 15 to pursue a career in hairdressing. Harmer’s first experience in the aviation industry was six years [...]

Geraldine “Jerrie” Mock – USA

Geraldine “Jerrie” Mock – USA

After having had several jobs, Geraldine (Jerrie) Mock (1925 – 2014), née Fredritz became manager of the Colombus Airport (Ohio). She had married Russell Mock in 1945 and they had […]

Valentina Tereshkova – Russia

Valentina Tereshkova – Russia

Valentina Tereshkova (1937 – ) was born in a small village in the Yaroslavl Oblast in western Russia. Tereshkova’s father was a tractor driver and her mother worked in a […]

Ada Rogato – Brazil

Ada Rogato – Brazil

Ada Rogato (1910 – 1986) received from her parents, Italian immigrants, the same education given to most women of that time – but she wanted to learn to fly. She […]

Submit a Portrait

Categories

  • First Female Pilot
  • The Beginnings
  • Women Aviation Breakthroughs

Tags

1784 - 1909 1910 - 1919 1920 - 1929 1930 - 1939 1940 - 1949 1950 - 1959 1960 - 1969 1970 - 1979 1980 -1989 2000 - 2009

Watch the Legacy Unfold

Powered by WordPress theme Stained Glass