SportS
Three Daring Young Women and Their Flying Machines
writing piloting books that are the gold stan- dard around the world for civil aviation pilot training.
Off-roading…in an airplane Celia Vanderpool loves to go off-roading.
The pilot/aviation educator does it often in her vintage 1957 Cessna 180 tail dragger. Occa- sionally she flies sea or ski planes if remote is- land beaches or unpaved strips call, and she also flies American historic routes specifically des- ignated to follow historic events throughout the U.S.
“Last year, I did most of the Lewis and
Clark Trail with my four-legged co-pilot, Skye. I also fly classic airplanes and war birds when possible.” Last summer, she joined a group for a ride
in a DC-3 from Riverside, CA to Genesco, NY for the National War Plane museum air show. They continued on to Oshkosh for the grand- daddy of civil aviation air shows before return- ing to California. Other historic routes she has flown include Route 66, and the Pony Express Trail.
Given her penchant for U.S. History, it Diane Myers, second from left, with her Cessna 414 and some of her Ninety-Nines Flying Club friends. by Rusty Pilot Donia Moore “It’s always sunny above
the clouds.” And that holds true for three San
Clemente women who just happen to be pilots and members of the Orange County Ninety Nines flying club. The Ninety-Nines is a legacy of aviator and
adventuress Amelia Earhart. In 1929, there were only 117 licensed women pilots in the U.S. Led by Amelia Earhart and other women aviators at Curtis Field in New York, 99 of them joined the club, hence the name. Amelia Earhart was the first President. Today, mem- bership in the nonprofit charitable organization has grown to thousands of women pilots in 36 countries.
San Clemente’s Own
Ninety-Nines Diane Myers, Diane Titterington-
Machado, and Celia Vanderpool all agree that flying above it all is the best way to look at the world … or even upside down, as in barrel rolls. All three are accomplished aviators, com- peting in air races and rallies all across the country when they aren’t raising money for scholarships or mentoring other women pilots. It’s impossible to know how many young
women aviators have been influenced by close contact with a member of the Ninety-Nines. Their Scholarship program encourages young pilots to succeed in following their flying dreams. Since 1941, the Ninety Nines have awarded 496 Amelia Earhart Memorial Schol- arships to qualified members to further fund advanced flight training, including jet ratings and technical training. These are in addition to funding given for Academic Scholarships, Re- search Scholarship Grants and New Pilot awards.
44 SANCLEMENTEJOURNAL
The Joy of Flying… Diane Myers is as at home in the captain’s
seat of a 737 as she is in her own twin engine Cessna 414. Her training was initially at Orange County Airport. She traded her love of riding motorcycles for her dream of flying. A career commercial pilot for Conti-
nental Airlines until her retirement, Diane was responsible for teaching new pilots to fly 737s. She flew the Honolulu route, is- land hopping across the Pacific for 22 years, ferrying cargo and passengers twice a week. Occasionally, she flew as an air ambulance. But it was when a cargo of live crabs got loose that she literally had her hands full, trying to fly while crab wrangling crew members scurried to get the crustaceans back into their containers. Another memorable and long flight
was taken during the L.A. riots. Diane was the co-pilot on a DC-10 flying into Los An- geles during the Rodney King incident. When the tower received reports of shoot- ing, Diane was diverted to San Francisco, then to Portland. However, Portland wasn’t equipped to handle DC10s, so she was diverted back to San Francisco where she was finally al- lowed to land. Although retired, she is still a flight instructor and mentor for younger pilots.
If you can do it… One day on TV, Diane Titterington-
Machado saw a little, old, white-haired lady do- nating her plane to an island to be used for medical purposes. “I thought, if she can fly, so can I”. She called the airport to book an intro- ductory ride. “Within a week I was flying. There’s nothing like it!” Forty-three years later, Diane still feels that
way every time she takes her Cessna 150 out for a spin. This maneuver, usually unnerving for beginning pilots, is one of her favorite aer-
Diane Myers, Celia Vanderpool & Diane Titterington-Machado.
from any flight attitude if the aircraft has suffi- cient yaw while at the stall point. Diane knows flying from the inside out.
She ferried new Cessna airplanes from the fac- tory in Wichita, Kansas to Columbus, Ohio. She worked three jobs 80 hours a week to be able to afford her aircraft rating training. “I may have been the only female flying at
Port Columbus International Airport. I never saw another woman flying,” she remarked. It was 1976 before the military allowed women pilots. While in Texas, working as an air traffic
controller at Houston Center she habitually ar- rived at the airport at 5am on her days off so she could fly fire patrol or ferry airplanes. That meant she got to fly for free. Now, she looks forward to mentoring women aviators. Her husband Rod Machado is a well-known author,
flying dreams. Since then she has flown as a bush pilot in southeast Alaska, followed along the Yukon River, and race in the Air Race Clas- sic.
The Women’s Transcontinental Air Race
(AWTAR), better known as the Powder Puff Derby, was the forerunner of the Air Race Clas- sic. It took its nickname from an observation made by Will Rogers that the racers all took one final look in their compacts and dabbed a bit of powder on their noses before taking off. The AWTAR held its 30th, final and com- memorative flight in 1977, but the Air Race Classic (ARC) continues the tradition of transcontinental speed competition for women pilots. As do San Clemente’s three daring pilots,
carrying on the traditions of the infamous Ninety-Nines!
obatic moves. It is a special category of stall re- sulting in autorotation around the vertical axis and a shallow, rotating, downward path. Spins can be entered intentionally or unintentionally
should come as no surprise that Celia is a re- tired teacher. She taught Aviation Science and Meteorology, among other subjects, at San Clemente High School. “Aviation is such a motivator that it makes
all the other science and math subjects make sense,” she says. Four years ago, Celia retired to pursue her
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76