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Chapter III

And there were women who knew they could pilot an aircraft as well as men could. Like all aviators of the time, these women received very little formal training, but their enthusiasm, desire, and determination to achieve saw them through. Some never bothered or had the opportunity to take the test for a license, but in those early days, a license was not necessary.

It is interesting to note that the few of these women continued their flying much past the end of World War I. Despite their vigorous efforts to persuade the Government to allow them to do so, American women were not allowed to fly in combat zones, and this may have dampened their adventurous spirit. Also, during World War I aviation matured to the point that its novelty was beginning to wear off. Flying was becoming more commonplace in the 1920s. Aircraft were less dangerous to fly and so perhaps less interesting to those who had flown the stick-and-wire open airplanes of the pre-war days.

Opinion is divided, between Blanche Stuart Scott and Bessica Faith Raiche, as to who was America's first aviatrix. Blanche Scott had her first contact with aviation in 1910, when she contracted with the Willys Overland Company to drive an Overland car from New York to San Francisco as a publicity stunt,