Blanche Noyes (June 23, 1900 – October 6, 1981) was an American pioneering female aviator who was among the first ten women to receive a transport

pilot's license Pilot licensing or certification refers to permits for operating aircraft. Flight crew licences are regulated by ICAO Annex 1 and issued by the civil aviation authority of each country. CAA’s have to establish that the holder has met a specifi ...

. In 1929, she became

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

's first licensed female pilot.

Biography

She was born Blanche Wilcox on June 23, 1900, in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

. She gave up her acting career after marrying pilot Dewey L. Noyes (c. 1900 – 1935) in 1928. She started flying in 1929 after getting a lesson from her husband. She soloed on February 15 after four hours of training and received her pilot's license in June of the same year. Noyes entered the inaugural

Women's Air Derby The Women's Air Derby was the first official women-only air race in the United States, taking place during the 1929 National Air Races. Humorist Will Rogers referred to it as the Powder Puff Derby, the name by which the race is most commonly know ...

in August 1929, one of twenty competitors attempting to fly from

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

to Cleveland. Along the way, she "narrowly escaped death when her plane caught fire in mid-air near Pecos." She set down so hard her landing gear was damaged. She put out the fire, made repairs and resumed the race. She placed fourth in the heavy class. She was a demonstration pilot for

Standard Oil Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co-f ...

in 1931 and flew with various organizations. On 11 December 1935, her husband and his passenger died when his airplane crashed in dense fog and a snowstorm. In 1936, she teamed up as co-pilot to

Louise Thaden Iris Louise McPhetridge Thaden (born Louise McPhetridge; November 12, 1905 – November 9, 1979) was an American aviation pioneer, holder of numerous aviation records, and the first woman to win the Bendix trophy, alongside Blanche Noyes. She was ...

(a fellow 1929 Women's Air Derby competitor) and won the

Bendix Trophy The Bendix Trophy is a U.S. air racing, aeronautical racing trophy. The transcontinental, point-to-point race, sponsored by industrialist Vincent Hugo Bendix, Vincent Bendix founder of Bendix Corporation, began in 1931 as part of the National Ai ...

Race in the first year women were allowed to compete against men. They set a new world record of 14 hours, 55 minutes flying from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, in a Beech C17R Staggerwing

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

Laura Ingalls Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder (February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957) was an American writer, mostly known for the ''Little House on the Prairie'' series of children's books, published between 1932 and 1943, which were based on her childhood ...

came in second by 45 minutes flying a Lockheed Orion. JFK_with_1963_Federal_Woman's_Award_winners

While living in

Irvington, New Jersey Irvington is a Township (New Jersey), township in Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, New Jersey, United States. Per the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 61,176. The township had the ninth-highest property tax rate ...

, Noyes became a member of the Women's Advisory Committee on Aeronautics. In August 1936, she was among a handful of leading aviatrices to join the Air Marking Group of the

Bureau of Air Commerce The Air Commerce Act of 1926 created an Aeronautic Branch of the United States Department of Commerce. Its functions included testing and licensing of pilots, certification of aircraft and investigation of accidents. In 1934, the Aeronautics Branc ...

, funded by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

. The group's objective was to aid aerial navigation by writing the name of the nearest town at 15-mile (24 km) intervals, on the roofs of prominent buildings if possible, on the ground in white paint when not. With America's entry into

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in December 1941, however, for security reasons the Noyes team had to black out the roughly 13,000 sites they had marked. After the war, as head of the air marking division of the Civil Aeronautics Administration, she oversaw their restoration and added further navigational aids. According to the

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...

, "For many years, she was the only woman pilot allowed to fly a government aircraft." She also wrote numerous newspaper and magazine articles. She died on October 6, 1981, in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

Legacy

She was the first woman awarded a gold medal by the Commerce Department, for 35 years of government service improving air safety. In 2021, an opera memorializing her run in the 1936 Bendix Trophy Race titled ''Staggerwing'' was premiered at the

Kansas Aviation Museum The Kansas Aviation Museum is a museum located in Wichita, Kansas, United States, near 31st South and George Washington Blvd. The building was the former Wichita Municipal Airport terminal from 1935 to 1954. The Museum features many display a ...

. Composed by Lisa DeSpain with librettist Rachel J. Peters, ''Staggerwing'' was the winner of the 2020 biennial Zepick Modern Opera Competition.

References

External links

Photographs of Blanche Noyes
at the Cleveland Memory Project, Cleveland State University Libraries.
Portrait of Blanche W. Noyes, Santa Monica (probably), 1929.

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

Photographic Archive (Collection 1429). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library,

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Noyes, Blanche 1900 births 1981 deaths American air racers American aviation record holders American women aviation record holders Aviators from Ohio Flight endurance record holders People from Cleveland People from Irvington, New Jersey 20th-century American women 20th-century American people