While women pilots are celebrated, and there were a few fairly senior development posts held by women over the years (Frances Bradfield, Beatrice Shilling and others), can anyone point to an aeroplane that actually got manufactured with a female designer’s name attached?
By: Beermat - 13th March 2018 at 22:18
ZRX, I get the impression that a lot of what became Lockheed’s ‘history’ was put together at the time by their PR department. That statement is interesting!
By: Arabella-Cox - 12th March 2018 at 19:19
Hedy Lamarr might also be considered for the work she did for Howard Hughes.
By: ZRX61 - 12th March 2018 at 18:34
There’s a few at Lockheed.. who can’t talk about what they did (yet)
By: pogno - 11th March 2018 at 19:43
I noticed this short clip about Elsie MacGill and CCF Hurricane production.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZoulEgf348
In it mentions the aircraft being fitted with de-icing mods to enable operations in cold weather, never heard of this before but in theory possible I guess by ducting heat from the glycol or engine oil rads into the wing leading edge structure.
Richard
By: RAB - 24th October 2017 at 03:08
There was the Bland Mayfly and also Emma Lilian Todd – before 1910.
By: Beermat - 23rd October 2017 at 17:16
Thanks everyone! Very interesting stuff.
By: Maxim08 - 23rd October 2017 at 16:55
Elsie McGill, first female aerospace engineer in Canada best known for managing Hurricane production at CCF in Canada during WW2.
She designed the Maple Leaf trainer of which 10 were built. A quick browse of Wikipedia indicates that she was the world’s first female aeronautical engineer, not just Canada’s.
Regards
John
By: John Aeroclub - 23rd October 2017 at 15:21
Blossom Miles.
John
Ha didn’t see the above post.
By: NEEMA - 23rd October 2017 at 15:20
Maxine “Blossom” Miles of course comes to mind. She famously took the lead in producing the Sparrowhawk in a few weeks for F. G. to race in the 1935 Kings Cup.
By: ericmunk - 23rd October 2017 at 14:38
Ursula Hänle’s pioneering work in glassfibre aircraft construction resulted in her being a co-owner and designer of Glasflügel Segelflugzeugbau GmbH. She designed the Salto, among others, and wrote the book “Kleine Fiberglas Flickfibel” that is still used as a manual on glassfibre repairs in gliders.
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October 23, 2017 at 2:00 pm