Anésia Pinheiro Machado (June 1902 or 5 June 1904, in
Itapetininga
Itapetininga is a municipality in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The population is 165,526 (2020 est.) in an area of 1790 km2. The name comes from a Tupi-Guarani language, meaning "dry stone".Teresa De Marzo being the first.) She made her first solo flight on March 17, 1922. In April 1922 she received Brevet No. 77 from the
Fédération Aéronautique Internationale
The (; FAI; en, World Air Sports Federation) is the world governing body for air sports, and also stewards definitions regarding human spaceflight. It was founded on 14 October 1905, and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It maintai ...
(FAI) by Aeroclube do Brasil.
Biography
Machado was the first female pilot in Brazil to carry passengers, to become a journalist writing exclusively on matters of aviation, to make stunt flights, and to make a cross-country flight. She made the cross-country flight in 1922, and when she finished
Santos Dumont
Alberto Santos-Dumont ( Palmira, 20 July 1873 — Guarujá, 23 July 1932) was a Brazilian aeronaut, sportsman, inventor, and one of the few people to have contributed significantly to the early development of both lighter-than-air and heavier- ...
gave her a gold medal, a replica of one given to him by Isabel de Bragança. Anesia kept it as a good luck charm.
In July 1943 she earned an American commercial pilot’s licence with additional ratings as instructor and for flying on instruments only.
In 1951 she flew with presidential greetings on a goodwill tour throughout the Americas. She was later quoted as saying, "The greatest satisfaction I believe I ever had was in 1951, when I delivered greetings to presidents in North, Central and South America. The then secretary general of the OAS, who is now President Lleras Camargo of Colombia, gave me the letters to deliver personally."
In 1970 she was made an honorary citizen of Ne Missouri by Governor
Warren Hearnes
Warren Eastman Hearnes (July 24, 1923 – August 16, 2009) was an American politician who served as the 46th governor of Missouri from 1965 to 1973. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first officeholder eligible to serve two consecutiv ...
.
In 1989 she received the
Edward Warner Award The Edward Warner Award is an award that's given in the field of aviation to aviation pioneers or organizations that have contributed to civil aviation. The award is named after Edward Pearson Warner, the first President of the council of ICAO.
T ...
.
Due to her pioneering achievements in aviation, she was called the "Dean of all Women Pilots."
She was a member of the
Ninety-Nines
The Ninety-Nines: International Organization of Women Pilots, also known as The 99s, is an international organization that provides networking, mentoring, and flight scholarship opportunities to recreational and professional female pilots. Foun ...
.
Further reading
*''Anésia,'' by Augusto de Lima Neto, is a biography of her in Portuguese, published in 1992.
*''Anésia um vôo no tempo'', meaning ''Anesia, a flight through time,'' is a 1999 film in Portuguese about her life.