Where the Sky Begins
The first, and hugely anticipated, race for women pilots started in California in May 1929. Twenty top women pilots of the time, including Amelia Earhart, entered the race. Heading to Cleveland, it was a significant challenge at a time when women were expected to stay at home. There were only seventy women pilots in the US. Few women drove cars. Some were committed to institutions to be cured of their hysteria if they insisted on learning to fly “gallivanting like hoydens.”
Not only were the pilots considered feeble or unfit as women to fly planes, but race officials had no experience organizing flying races or even simple safety precautions for the crowds who turned out to watch. Underworld figures bribed organizers and even hired thugs to sabotage planes. The pilots had only each other for support and advice. Their leader, stunt pilot Florence “Pancho” Barnes, not only maintained morale but verbally bested inept and corrupt officials.
The authors have taken an important event in aviation history—exciting and extraordinary in itself—and developed a novel that keeps even a non-aviation minded reader hooked, turning pages to discover what could possibly happen next. The afterword is a bonus, explaining which (small) parts are fiction and how dramatically the truth played out. It also lists the pilots taking part, a little of their history and how they finished in the race.
But the race itself and the winners are only part of the story. Throughout the novel the reader is jolted by the insults, injustices, and obstacles faced by these competent pilots simply because they were women. They had far more to overcome than men in a similar race. It is a reminder to today’s readers about how very hard women had to struggle to become equal.
