Aida de Acosta

Aida Marta de Acosta Breckinridge ( born July 28, 1884 in Elberon ( NJ ), † 26 May 1962 Bedford ) was the first American woman of Cuban descent, which controlled a motorized airship flying solo. She made her flight six months before the Wright brothers conducted their famous flight.

Life

On 27 June 1903, when she was staying with her mother in Paris, they saw for the first time airships. By the way, she met the Brazilian Alberto Santos Dumont airship designer know which demonstrated flights in Paris at that time.

He taught Aida de Acosta in the aviation technology of airships. She made her first solo flight with the airship Santos -Dumont No.. 9 " La baladeuse ". She flew from Neuilly -sur -Seine, a suburb of Paris, the Parc de Bagatelle, where they landed on a field. During the flight, she was accompanied by Alberto Santos Dumont on a bicycle; he called to her the instructions from the ground. The story about the first flight of Aida de Acosta was published by Helen S. Waterhouse in a book on the history of female pilots in July 1933 in the United States.

In 1927 she married Henry Breckinridge, Attorney and former Assistant Secretary of War.