About this item
"A beautiful and inspiring book...fascinatingly told." -- Donna Shirley, former head of the U.S. Mars program, NASAThe exhilarating true story of the unsung pioneers who blazed a pathway towards a new era of female aviation...The year is 1929, and on the eve of America's Great Depression, nineteen gutsy and passionate pilots soared above the glass ceiling in the very first female cross-country air race. Armed with grit and determination, they crossed thousands of miles in propeller-driven airplanes to defy the naysayers who would say it cannot -- not should not -- be done.From the indomitable Pancho Barnes to the infamous Amelia Earhart, Sky Girls chronicles a defining and previously forgotten moment when some of the first women pilots took their rightful place in the open skies.
About the Author
While working her way through The University of Oklahoma on the faculty teaching flying, Gene Nora (pronounced Janora) participated in a female astronaut research program in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the summer of 1961. Though Gene Nora was among the thirteen women pilots (tagged the "Mercury 13") who passed the astronaut physical exams, further testing was canceled though five books were subsequently published about that little footnote in history.Gene Nora served as President of The Ninety-Nines, Inc., an international organization of licensed women pilots, and involvement in the group's museum led to exhaustive research of the history of early women pilots. Her book "The Powder Puff Derby of 1929" was published in 2001, and whetted her appetite for her own transcontinental air racing.In 1962 she flew as a sales demonstration pilot for the Beech Aircraft factory in Wichita, Kansas. Initially, she flew one of the Three Musketeers, flying formation across forty-eight states in ninety days as a promotional event to introduce the new Beech Musketeer. The job evolved into additional ratings and flying the entire Beech line and also her true adventure story "The Fabulous Flight of the Three Musketeers" published in 2009. Gene Nora and her husband Bob live in Boise, Idaho where they owned and operated a fixed base operation on the Boise Airport for many years. They have two children and three grandchildren. Of course she continues to fly.
