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DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE
ROCHESTER, N.Y., TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1948

Rochester Woman 1st of Sex to Ride Jet Plane

Mrs. Blanche Stewart Scott, 163 Hobart St., the Susan B. Anthony of the mechanical age, rang up a new first yesterday.

The 56-year-old feminine trail blazer became the first woman in America to take a ride in a jet plane.

Mrs. Scott rode with the nation's top supersonic pilot, Capt. Charles E. Yeager, in a two-place TF-80C, the trainer version of the Shooting Star, at the National Air Races in Cleveland, the United Press reported.

38th Plane Anniversary

The occasion was the 38th anniversary of her first airplane venture, when she piloted a Curtiss pusher at Hammondsport. At that historic occasion, after a little instruction from Glenn Curtiss, she became the first woman to fly a plane.

Previously, Mrs. Scott hung up another record.  Earlier that year, she drove a stock model car from New York to the West Coast, the first time that then gruelling endurance test had been met by a woman.

"It's wonderful. Really a superior way to travel," Mr. [[sic]] Scott told United Presser Ken Ford as she climbed out of the sleek jet.

Then she doomed the conventional airplanes with: "They're on their way out. In three years the transports will be all jets."

"It was the first time I've been enthusiastic about an airplane in years," she went on. "After 38 years of flying, I'do [[sic]] gotten so I took airplanes in my stride.

Takes Planes in Stride

"You have such a feeling of confidence. There's a lot of airplane under you and it doesn't matter how steep you turn, you just know nothing can happen.

She tabbed the flight, as the "smoothest I've ever made. And I had nothing to worry about with Captain Yeager at the controls." 

Yeager is the man who has flown well above the speed of sound in an X-1 rocket plane. Yesterday's speed was not recorded.

Set Flight Record

The flight was a far cry from the one in which Mrs. Scott also made feminine history——the first long distance flight b ya [[sic]] woman, 60 miles in all. That jaunt required more than one hour in the air. The same distance could have been covered by her jet trainer in 6 minutes.

But it wasn't a far cry from the modus operandi of Blanche Stewart Scott. Ever since the day, when she was 13 and City Council unsuccessfully demanded she stop driving ana [[sic]] utomobile about Rochester, she has been setting a new place for women. And now it's at jet speed.

[[photo caption:]]
MRS. BLANCHE S. SCOTT