On April 29, 1929, she set the women’s endurance record of 22 hours, 3 minutes, 12 seconds. A month later, she set a new speed mark of 156 mph, thus becoming the only woman to hold all three records simultaneously.

Can a woman pilot enter an aviation race against men and hope to win? The answer would have been an emphatic “No” in the early days of flight. But in 1936, Louise Thaden, one of America’s foremost female aviators of the 1930s, changed all that.

Iris Louise McPhetridge was born in Bentonville, Arkansas, USA, on November 12, 1905. She had an adventurous childhood—hunting and fishing. Her father fostered her mechanical skills by teaching her to repair the family car. At the age of 14, she signed up for a biplane trip with a local barnstormer—an early hint of an abiding passion for flight. Later, her job with the Travel Air Manufacturing Corporation offered free pilot’s lessons as a bonus and she seized the opportunity. She earned her pilot’s certificate in May 1928. The same year, she married Herbert von Thaden, an aeronautical engineer and designer of all-metal aircraft, and added Thaden to her name. This was an era of frenzied aviation record setting—with some marks being overtaken in months or even weeks. Louise set the world’s first official women’s altitude record of 20,260 feet on December 7, 1928. On April 29, 1929, she set the women’s endurance record of 22 hours, 3 minutes, 12 seconds. A month later, she set a new speed mark of 156 mph, thus becoming the only woman to hold all three records simultaneously.

But women’s records were just women’s records. Female pilots were not welcome to compete against men. So for some years, a separate race called the National Women’s Air Derby was organised. In August 1929, the first such women-only cross-continent race started from Santa Monica, California and ended in Cleveland, Ohio. Thaden entered the 2,800-mile test of endurance, flying ability and courage. Tragedy struck early when race contestant Marvel Crosson died after she bailed out from her stricken aircraft and her parachute did not open. One newspaper headline read, “Women have conclusively proven that they cannot fly.” Louise was undeterred. She once wrote, “If your time has come, it is a glorious way to pass over. The smell of burning oil, the feel of strength and the power beneath your hands, so quick has been the transition between life and death, there still must linger in your mind’s eye the everlasting beauty and joy of flight.” The other pilots decided that the best tribute to Marvel would be to persist. After eight exhausting days, Louise won the race, beating such celebrated fliers as Amelia Earhart and Blanche Noyes.

Is there any limit to human endurance? In 1932, Louise Thaden and Frances Marsalis set out to prove there wasn’t. They flew a Curtiss Thrush biplane over New York for 196 hours. The aircraft was refuelled 78 times during flight. Food and water were lowered from another aircraft by means of a rope. The women made a series of live radio broadcasts from the biplane and the event secured national interest.