Fay Gillis Wells
Fay Gillis Wells ( * October 15, 1908 in Minneapolis, Minnesota; † 2 December 2002) was an American pilot and journalist. She was a founding member of the pilots union Ninety Nines. In 2003, she was one of the 100 most important women in aviation.
Biography
Childhood and education
On October 15, 1908 Helen Fay Gillis was born as the daughter of a mining engineer and a foreign correspondent in Minneapolis. Your parents, they took their visits abroad in over four continents. After she had completed the Battin High School in New Jersey in 1925, she decided to initially to study Journalism at Michigan State University. Your existing since childhood fascination of flying and her dream of sitting in the cockpit yourself once she moved to leave the university back in the first year of study.
First career as a pilot
Your first flying lesson took Wells on August 1, 1929 in the small airline Curtiss Flying Service in New York City. During a flight with a biplane aerobatics lessons there was turbulence which Wells forced to get out to pull the ripcord their parachute and Long Iceland, New York to jump. This episode brought her, triggered by the great interest of media, recording the first woman in the 1922 founded Caterpillar Club. Membership is open to all pilots that could save their lives by a parachute jump.
A month after her parachute Notsprung she received her pilot's license on October 5, 1929 and was therefore one of the 117 American women who had a license to fly at this time. Greatly impressed by their great skill in flying lessons, she engaged the aircraft manufacturer Glenn Curtiss (1878-1930) as Vorführpilotin for its aircraft models with an open cockpit. She was the first woman ever, who was hired in this occupation. During this time she made the acquaintance of Amelia Earhart and other female pilots with whom they ( " Ninety- Nines " ) later founded the club of ninety-nine.
The Club of the Ninety-nine is an association of American pilots with aviator license. The club dedicated to the promotion of camaraderie and the position of women in aviation. The drafted by Fay invitation for a first meeting on November 2, 1929 Long Iceland followed by a large number of 117 is signed pilots. A total of ninety-nine of them were ultimately in the union, among them Wells. The number of the first members was the future name of the organization. On a photo that was taken at this meeting, many of the female pilots wear dresses and hats or coats with fur collar. Only Wells is wearing a ölbespritzten flying suit, helmet and goggles, as they had previously not worked briefly on their plane.
In the following years she was very involved for the union by as clothing for pilots and designed from 1934 as a fashion editor for the magazine of the organization, called " Airwoman ", worked.
Second Career as a journalist
Due to the business of her father, Julius H. Gillis, the family moved in 1930 in the former Soviet Union, and remained there until 1934., Where Wells was able to gain new experiences. So she wrote freelance during this time as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times and the Herald Tribune as well as for a variety of Russian aviation magazines.
1932 Wells flew the first U.S. citizen a Soviet civil aircraft. The following year, she asked the American pilot Wiley Post (1898-1935) then, the logistics for the Russian part of his solo flight to take over the world. She took care of the landing permits and fuel refueling in Novosibirsk and Irkutsk. Wiley promised her for participating in his next flight, which should go to the Arctic. In her work as a foreign correspondent, however, Wells met the pilots and journalists Linton Wells know, married him and later decided against the Arctic flight. Wiley Post and Will Rogers eingesprungene for Wells rushed from later on this flight and lost their lives.
Your honeymoon spent Fay and Linton Wells in Ethiopia to report on the war against Italy on site. He sent reports from the north and Fay Gillis Wells was in the south reporting. So it happened that often appeared simultaneously by the spouses headlines on the covers of newspapers times.
Upon her return to the United States Fay Wells was a Hollywood correspondent and reported on the go for 13 years for the White House in the tenure of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. She traveled with the press department of the White House to Vietnam and was one of three correspondents who have been chosen to accompany President Nixon on his trip to China in 1972.
Your work for the Ninety- Nines and other projects in the aerospace
With immense courage, enthusiasm and the will to achieve something, she was always an inspiration to others, to contribute to the advancement of aviation, no matter how big or small this was.
In commemoration of the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an airplane, she helped in 1941 to call the Amelia Earhart Scholarship Fund in life. For 15 years of existence, the club of the Ninety-nine, she wrote a book about its history. Your project in 1963 was the approval of Amelia Earhart airmail stamp.
The excited by Fay in 1973, " International Forest of Friendship " was officially opened beside Lake Warnock in Atchison, Kansas on July 24, 1978 Birthday of Amelia Earhart. This forest was started in collaboration with the Ninety Nines, and the city of Atchison. It is a memorial to the men and women in the aerospace industry. Each tree has its own flag and stands for an American state or for one of the countries from which the honorees. On a path through the forest there are granite panels on which the names are to be found of more than 1200 celebrities from the Aviation - among them Amelia Earhart, the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright.
On the 40th anniversary of Amelia Earhart's solo flight from Honolulu to San Francisco in 1975, she planned the celebrations of the Ninety Nines. In the years 1976 to 1991 Fay was the hostess of the annual meeting of the Ninety Nines in Atchison.
Honors and Awards
Fay not only received the Award of 99s inspiration, but also the title of honorary citizen of the cities of Atchison and Birmingham. In the persons encyclopedia Who's Who she was admitted, among other things in the " America", " American Women " and " Aviation and Aerospace". The Katherine B. Wright Award - an award in honor of the sister of Orville and Wilbur Wright received it in 2001. The following year she was the winner of the Amelia Earhart Pioneering Achievement Award. Part of the price is doped with $ 10,000.00 scholarship that could be awarded to the winner of an educational institution of their choice.