flying

WAFS: Cornelia Fort

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Cornelia Clark Fort was a United States aviator who became famous for being part of two aviation-related events: Pearl Harbor and second woman to join the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS).

Cornelia Fort was born in 1919 in Nashville, TN. Her interest in aviation was born at a young age of five when she watched a barnstormer perform in the Curtiss Jenny. She took her first lesson in 1940 and was hooked becoming an instructor in 1941. Her first job was at Fort Collins, CO flight school where she was the only woman flight instructor in a government sponsored pilot training program.

Source: Wikipedia

One warm December morning Cornelia and her student were out flying. The student practiced, honing his skills prior to solo flight, practicing take-offs and landings and level flight when Cornelia observed a military aircraft headed in their direction. While not unusual since the military base was next to the civilian airport, something was off. It was December 1941. Knowing something was off, Cornelia had seized the controls from the student and averted an incident with the oncoming aircraft, and watched in utter disbelief, as the Japanese aircraft passed by. She and her student landed and fled to safety.

Knowing US was soon headed to war she was interested in contributing to that effort. She accepted a instructor position at Andrews Flying Service in Honolulu in September of 1941 and by December of that year she had 300 flight hours. In September of the same year she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Service (WAFS). WAFS was created in September 1942 within the Air Transport Command, under Nancy Harkness Love’s leadership. WAFS were recruited from among commercially licensed women pilots with at least 500 hours flying time and a 200-hp rating.

She was based in Long Beach, CA and checked out in the BT-13 and participated in ferrying missions. It was during one of those missions when she was transporting a group of pilots from Long Beach to Dallas, TX in March 1943, she perished in during a mid-air collision with another aircraft that resulted in her aircraft crashing to the ground. She was the first of the WAFS to be killed on a mission.

March is Women History Month and Women of Aviation Month.

See Also:

Wikipedia: Cornelia Fort

Lost Aviators of Pearl Harbor

Plane and Pilot Magazine: Cornelia Fort

Fly Girls: Cornelia Fort

Repost – Finding Nemo

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Ten Years Ago…

Ormand Beach (OMN) was nice a little airport to put up for the night. We parked overnight at Sunrise Aviation and took a cab down to South Atlantic Avenue. Although we intended to stay at the Best Western on the beach, we ended up staying in a condo rental called Georgian recommended by our cab driver. The Georgian is a recently renovated condo community with beach access. The decor resembled and gave the impression of living on a cruise ship. The studio apartment itself had  a kitchenette, a bedroom and a living area with a sofa bed (with convenient shades to keep the light off the bedroom if necessary from the morning glare or for privacy) and a sheet of heavy glass french doors opening out into a balcony facing the beach and Atlantic Ocean.   At $74 per night this was a steal, the  lowest price we had paid for a room on this trip! There were plenty of restaurants within walking distance. After dinner it was pleasant to walk on the beach and hear the sound of the waves crashing gently on to shore.

The next day we arrived early at the airport. We wanted to be fueled and off before Nemo arrived. There was a sliver of hope, we could get the best of Nemo. We were one hour further south than we originally intended to be. But there was always hope. The skies at Ormand Beach were clear with no sign of the oncoming storm. Almost. This was the last leg of our journey. If we could stay ahead of Nemo, we would be able to get home by evening.

After topping off at the self serve, we departed and raced north.  With tailwinds, there were times when we recorded almost 144kts ground speed. At times, I thought it was possible. I could see gaps in the radar images. If we got to Lumberton before the storm arrived, there was still a chance we would be able to get home that evening. The best route north was to stay ahead of the storm, and this meant over the ocean.  What chances did we have over open water? We had already returned our vests at Fort Pierce. Instead we tried to sneak behind and headed towards Jesup Wayne County Airport (KJES). It almost looked like we could get as far north as KJES or so we hoped.

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