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[[image]]
Smith's 16th birthday was especially sweet. She received her driver's license, a new automobile and her pilot's license (show below).


yet another first for a woman pilot. For many years Smith worked to establish an aviation museum on Long Island, now a reality at Mitchel Air Force Base in the old hangars of Mitchel Field.  She also served as codirector[[co-director]] of the Air Force Association's Mitchel Squadron's AeroSpace[[Aerospace]] Education Program introduced into Long Island schools in response to the Russian Sputnik challenge in the 1960s[[1960's]].
  She is an active member of the advisory board of the United States Navy Aircraft Carrier Intrepid Museum Foundation.  Plans are to have the refurbished Intrepid serve as a floating sea, air and space museum berthed at New York City's Pier 86 South.
  Today, Smith a grandmother of five, is just as enthusiastic about aviation as she was when she was a teenager wearing her brother's old knickers, sport shirt, argyle socks, beat-up jacket and a cotton helmet, goggles and sneakers.
  In her book, Aviatrix, she gives a vivid account of her early flying days and an inside view of her associations with aviation's superstars.  She flew with them and knew them all.
  In demand as an aviation consultant and lecturer, she is a consultant to the Floyd Bennett Field Association and divides her time among the East Coast, the West Coast and England as she continues to do research for another book.  She appears at libraries, schools and goes on television and radio talk shows to further the cause of aviation--with emphasis on the role women have played and continue to play in the Space Age.
  Smith has proved that age is not a defeat--but a victory.
[[Footnote]] Modern Maturity August-September 1982
[[Certificate Image]]
[[Left Margin of Certificate]]
FéDéRATION AéRONAUTIQUE
INTERNATIONALE

NATIONAL AERONAUTIC ASSOCIATION OF U.S.A.
INC.

Certificate No. 6906
The above named Association, recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, as the governing authority for the United States of America, certifies that
Elinor Smith
born 17th day of August, 1911[[August 1911]] having fulfilled all the conditions required by the Fédération Aréonautique Internationale, for an Aviator Pilot is hereby brevetted as such.
Date August 14, 1928
CONTEST COMMITTEE
[[signature]]Orville Wright
Chairman
[[signature]][[?]]
Executive Vice-Chairman
[[Right Margin of the Certificate]]
[[Picture of Elinor Smith]]
Signature of Pilot:
[[Elinor Smith]]