Phoebe Omlie was an early aviator who made waves in America in the 1920s and 1930s. Apart from pioneering many dangerous barnstorming acts, she set numerous world records including the highest altitude parachute jump by a woman. She was the first woman to receive an aircraft mechanic’s licence and the first licensed female transport pilot. She regularly undertook flights over thousands of miles all by herself, counting on her own skills to keep her machine humming.

She was also the first woman to be appointed to a US Government position in the aviation field. Few would disagree with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s assessment that Phoebe was one of “eleven women whose achievements make it safe to say the world is progressing”. And Phoebe used these achievements to inspire other women pilots to prove themselves as capable as men.

Phoebe Jane Fairgrave was born on November 21, 1902, in Des Moines, Iowa. The day before she graduated, there occurred a grand presidential visit, marked by a parade and a fly-past. Phoebe was fascinated by the aircraft and hooked for life. She began to pester the manager of a nearby airport to grant her a joyride. Finally, anxious to be rid of her, the manager instructed one of his pilots with a wink to give her “the works”. The amused pilot flung the plane around in the air through a series of aerobatic manoeuvres, determined to make the teenager sick. But she just kept begging for more.

After her fourth flight, Phoebe used part of the inheritance from her grandfather to purchase a Curtiss JN-4 ‘Jenny’ biplane. Next she persuaded the Fox Moving Picture Company to sign a contract to film her wing-walking, making parachute jumps and performing other stunts. She also hired 25-year-old World War I veteran Vernon Omlie to pilot her Jenny part-time. Omlie soon quit his job to become Phoebe’s personal pilot. She was now free to practise an amazing repertoire of feats including wing-walking, hanging from the aircraft by her teeth (she gripped a special mouthpiece attached to the end of a rope for the purpose), parachuting and even dancing the Charleston on top of the wing. After a few months of intensive practice, she set up the Phoebe Fairgrave Flying Circus, the first such enterprise owned by a woman. Then Vernon Omlie flew her across the country on a barnstorming tour. The large crowds cheered each of her stunts. But they simply loved her daring parachute jump.

Phoebe would crawl out onto the wing and leap off, her parachute billowing as she fell. But the chute was attached to the wing strut by a long rope and when it pulled taut she would cut herself loose and free fall. The crowds would gasp, thinking the chute had failed, and watch horrified as she plunged to certain death. Then, at the last possible moment, she would pull the rip cord of her second parachute and land unharmed. And she was constantly innovating and thinking up newer and tougher acts. However, very few of the thousands who came to see the shows bothered to pay, so it was a constant challenge to make ends meet.

When they managed to team up with Glenn Messer, another accomplished stunt flier, Phoebe decided to attempt transferring from one aircraft to another mid-air. Messer would hang by his knees from the end of a rope ladder and grab Phoebe’s outstretched hands as her plane closed in. It called for precise judgement and exceptional daring. Phoebe had both in abundance. These qualities saw her through feats that claimed the lives of many aerial artistes. Phoebe also set a record for the highest parachute jumps for a woman, making her descent from 15,200 ft. And she was still not 20.

With two young and attractive persons such as Phoebe Fairgrave and Vernon Omlie spending many months in close proximity, sharing extreme danger and thrills daily, it was perhaps inevitable that romance should blossom. And so it happened in 1922 that they were married. Phoebe then learned flying too and they began offering lessons in Memphis, Tennessee.

In 1928, she attempted to set an altitude record. As she coaxed her little Monocoupe above its limit, a spark plug quit and the main oil line gave way. Phoebe suffered from oxygen deprivation and almost fell unconscious. But she reached a women’s world record altitude of 25,400 ft, just about landed, then collapsed.

In the late 1920s, Phoebe came at or near the top in dozens of air races. In 1928, she competed in the National Reliability Air Tour, the only woman to do so, flying 9,600 km over tough and inhospitable terrain, accompanied by neither navigator nor mechanic. In 1931, at Eleanor Roosevelt’s request, she flew over 32,000 km across the country to campaign for presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt. Later, she received a government aviation appointment and discharged her administrative duties with as much aplomb as she did aviation.

In August 1936, Vernon Omlie died in a commercial flight crash. Phoebe was shattered and withdrew from public life for a while. During World War II, she trained a class of ten women flying instructors in pursuance of her strong belief that “if women can teach men to walk, they can teach them to fly.” Indeed, her protégés successfully trained both men and women applicants for military and civilian flight training programmes. However, Phoebe Omlie spent her last few years in self-imposed seclusion, plagued by lung cancer and alcoholism. She died on July 17, 1975. It was a sad end for a woman who was probably one of the most courageous aerial pioneers ever.