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[[newspaper clipping]]

22 The South Bend Tribune, Friday, October 2, 1964
Pioneer Aviatrix Wants to See Women in Moon Project
By GAY PAULEY
UPI Women's Editor
NEW YORK -- A woman who more than half a century ago set an aviation first for her sex would like to see a U.S. landing on the moon -- eventually.

"But what's the hurry," asked Blanche Stuart Scott. "Surely we must continue to pioneer, but why is it we have to beat the Russians? That money could be spent now on many things needed here -- education, slum clearance, housing..."

(The estimated overall cost of the moon project is $20 billion.)

Miss Scott, who lives in Rochester, N.Y., talked of the U.S. program to place a man on the moon by 1969, of women as astronauts and as commercial pilots when she was in New York for the annual reunion of the Early Birds.

Group of Pioneers

The Early Birds is an organization of aviation pioneers -- all flew before 1916. Miss Scott, one of the few women members of the group, said the U.S. Air Force credits her officially with a flight Sept. 6, 1910, to make her the first woman pilot. 

She wears a medallion presented her in 1960 by the Antique Airplane Association inscribing that Sept. 6, date. "But actually I'd soloed a few days earlier," she said. "As I remember, it was Aug. 18, 1910."

"Those were the days before pilots were licensed," said Miss Scott, a tiny, wiry woman with bright blue eyes who refuses to tell her age. "I flew in exhibits all around the country. Some of us pilots were paid as much as $5,000 a week -- a lot of money. But the pilot bore the cost of shipping his plane around, the mechanic's salary, repairs in case of smash-ups...

Days of Daring

"I cracked up twice. I have 41 mended bones in my body."

Those were the days for the daring, she recalled. She flew what she called a "pusher" -- a [[new column]] biplane (there were no monoplanes yet) in which the pilot sat well forward and flew strictly visually.

Miss Scott said her pilot days ended when World War I started and she sold her plane to the U.S. government. She'd married, but is now widowed, and said that today she's "not doing much, and going crazy." Actually, she added, she's started a book about her flying experiences and others.

One of these was before she became a pilot, when the Overland Co., to promoted the early auto, hired her to drive from New York to San Francisco, with Gertrude Phillips, a reporter, going along to log the trip.

"I was officially the first woman to drive across the country," said Miss Scott. "We were front page news in every city where we stopped.

Brought Her Fame

"My family was scandalized that I'd attempt the trip. They were aerialists. They'd rather I'd have broken my neck."
[[this last sentence highlighted for marginal comment as follows]] 
This sentence is a laugh, my people were staid New Englander and ancestor proud - Dont know where Pauley got the idea [[/marginal comment]]

But the fame from the motor trip brought her to the attention of Glenn Curtiss of the Pioneer Aviation Company, in Hammondsport, N.Y., 90 miles from Rochester. It was Curtis [[sic]] who encouraged her to take up flying -- in Curtiss-made planes, of course.

Miss Scott's career also has included radio commenting and in the 1950's she traveled the U.S.A. to gather material for and help promote the U.S. Air Force museum at Wright-Patterson field, Dayton, Ohio.

The one-time pilot argues there should be women in the astronaut program "because women are more durable than men. Some women already have taken all the tests and qualified."

But as for women's future in commercial aviation? "I don't think ever as pilots," she said. "The public just won't accept them."
[[/newspaper clipping]]