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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 (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 (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 […]

Born 5 November 1917 in Challans, France, she was the daughter of a wealthy shipbuilder and timber importer. After graduating from the university in Nantes, she studied art at the […]

Katya Budanova (1916 – 1943) was born into a peasant family in Konoplanka village in Smolensk Oblast. Working in an aircraft factory in Moscow, she became interested in aviation and […]

Born in Moscow, Lydia Litvyak, (1921 – 1943) was keen on aviation from her youth. At 14, she entered an aeroclub, and at 15, flew an aircraft for the first […]