Aviation pioneer Gladys Lacey Jones with her Taylorcraft airplane.
(Betty Jones Noble, News Sentinel)
When 100-year-old Gladys Lacey Jones tried to enlist in the Army as a woman pilot shortly before World War II she was turned down.
In fact, the East Tennessee native was turned down each of the three times she attempted to enlist.
She stands 5 foot, 1 inch tall and said the military wouldn't accept a pilot so short, even after she offered to put booster blocks on the airplane's pedals.
"But I could have done it anyway," Jones said.
That setback didn't deter Jones from her love of recreational flying or from becoming a founding member of the Tennessee Chapter of the Ninety-Nines 71 years ago.
The Ninety-Nines, originally founded in 1929 by Amelia Earhart and 98 other pilots, is a national coalition of women interested in coordinating the advancement of women in aviation.
There is an overwhelming sense of community present among all of the women in the group, and Ninety-Nines member Ernesteen Hunt said that when a woman is getting her pilot's license, friends are what she needs most.
"There's this great camaraderie among these pilots because we ate, slept and dreamt airplanes," Charlotte Meek, a Ninety-Nines member with more than 17,000 flying miles, said. "Some of us can't fly anymore, but my spirit says that we're still pilots and especially still lady pilots."
Gladys Lacey Jones, left, talks with Judy Wayman, center, and Linda Haynes during a reception for the 71st anniversary celebration of the Tennessee Chapter of the Ninety-Nines on Saturday, August 6, 2011 at McGee Tyson Airport.
After working as a secretary at the Bemberg Rayon Factory in Elizabethton, Tenn., in the 1930s, Jones enrolled in a pilot training program sponsored by the Civil Aeronautics Authority that aimed to increase the number of pilots in the United States.
All men and women could enroll, but only the top 10 men and top two women scorers in a preliminary instructional class would be awarded with 50 hours of actual airborne flight training.
Jones was one of the top scorers and went on to receive her pilot's license.
"I'm just so proud of her. I always think of her as a generation ahead of her time because she was a career woman," said Bette Noble, Jones' daughter.
Jones met the man who became her husband when he was giving flight lessons at the Tri-City Airport.
Although she took a break from work to raise her children, Jones eventually returned to work to help send her kids to college and remained a recreational pilot as long as she was able.
"You might think these women are just little old ladies, but not at all," Martha Miller, chair of the Tennessee Chapter of the Ninety-Nines, said.
Miller said women are still underrepresented in the aviation world but that the original Ninety-Nines paid no heed to how seemingly nonexistent female pilots were in the 1930s.
"If Gladys hadn't done what she did, East Tennessee wouldn't have been able to participate in the Ninety-Nines," Miller said.
The Tennessee Chapter has 33 members and focuses on raising money to provide flight scholarships for women.
Source: http://www.knoxnews.com
