WOMEN AS AVIATORS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 309, 24 September 1918, Page 8

WOMEN AS AVIATORS

Kir,—"Women as Aviators" is the heading of an article which appears in vour columns to-day as .emanating from flip pen nf Mr. C. Ih Grcv in tlic i "Daily Express.'.' The article is (K interest to students of psychology, as demonstrating how difficult it is to kill man's fear of woman in .competition with himself. The. desire-to clip her wings before she tried them was evinced in education, medicine, science, politics; the stock argument boini' that

"As a woman cnmiot do tin- tiling, legislate so as to prevent her dnine the thing she is innapahle of doing.'' To a woman this is queer logic., hut it is man's with reference to woman's work. Aviation ':or women is not n war craze. Jlrs. Hewlett was the first woman to learn to ilv in England, obtaining her pilot's certificate in ML So convinced she of the. coming power of aviation, that she started a flying school at Brooklands, in partner-

ship with M. Blondeau, the first pupil I being tlio famous M. Dncrncq. Mrs. Hewlett taught her own son, FlightCommander Hewlett, whose sensational capture by the Germans while bombing their lines in the early days of the war will not soon bo forgotten. France had a great many women aviators previous to 1910. 'America was not far behind, and 1911 'found dozens of women qualifying as pilots. In 1016 Victor Carlstrom held the American cross-country- record having flown in a beautiful, large C'urtiss military biplane, with a 200-horse-power engine, from Chicago to New York. Miss Ruth Law announced in November that she would duplicate the feat. The idea was ridiculed. The time of year called for tbe most hardy constitution k- withstand the intense cold and the sustained nervous strain, and experts considered that it was impossible. The only machine at her command was an old "pusher" biplane, used for short exhibition {lights, and neither comfortable nor well equipped' for long flights, However, Miss Law accomplished "impossible." The "Scientific American" says: "Mis Law has broken the two records made by Carlstrom; has established a new American record for cross-country flights; has broken the world's record for continuous flight by women pilots; and most important of all, is, ifor the moment at least, America's premier aviator." I have been out of touch with the-fl.vins world since leaving England early in 191.7, so cannot give instances of women's achievements up to date; but we may take it for granted that, if women are seeking appointments as pilots over the fir-ing-lines, it is because they recognise the need for them, as truly as did the women surgeons recognise tho need 'for their help when they fitted out thoiv military hospital under the late Dr. Garrett-Anderson', only to be scouted by the "Grey's" of the British War Office.—l am, etc., LAURA MARVERSON. September 18.