of their own design, and they carried pistols, rifles, and knives, becoming “warriors as fierce as the men.”
And then there were more modern women warrior-aviatrixes, like the “Night Witches” of World War II, and Eileen Collins, who, far from being a space cadet, was a space commander… and Lotfia ElNadi, who defied Egyptian patriarchal culture to become a pilot in 1933.
Lotfia ElNadi : Flying in the Face of Tradition
Lotfia ElNadi was the first Middle Eastern woman as well as the first African woman to become an aviator. And as if that is not enough, she was actually the first female pilot in the world. Born in 1907 to a middle class family in Cairo, Egypt, she was expected to complete primary school and then become a housewife. Her mother encouraged her to go to the American College, which had a modernized curriculum and taught languages. ElNadi saw an article about a newly opened local flying school, and decided to find a way to study flying there, despite her father’s belief that higher education was a waste of time for a daughter. She tried asking a journalist to help her, but when that didn’t work out, she daringly made a direct approach to the director of the EgyptAir airline to see if he would assist her. He recognized the PR potential for EgyptAir of an Egyptian female airplane pilot and agreed to help, and she started aviation school as the only woman in a class of men, telling her father that she was going to a study group to conceal her aviation ambitions. Since ElNadi had no money to pay the tuition, she worked in trade as the school’s secretary and telephone operator.
In September of 1933, she earned her pilot’s license after only sixty-seven days of study; her achievement made headlines worldwide. At first her father was angry when he found out, but once he saw the positive press she was getting, he agreed to let her fly him on a trip over the pyramids. Three months later, ElNadi flew in the international race between Cairo and Alexandria at velocities averaging over 100 mph; she would have won if not for missing a mark but was disqualified on the technicality. However, she still received a prize of 200 Egyptian pounds and the congratulations of King Fuad for her stab at it. Feminist leader Huda Sha’arawi then raised funds to buy ElNadi a plane of her own. ElNadi served as secretary general for the Egyptian Aviation Club and flew for around five more years until her back was seriously hurt in an accident.
For about ten years after ElNadi achieved her aim of becoming a pilot, other Egyptian women followed suit; however, after that period, no others managed it until Dina-Carole El Sawy became a pilot for EgyptAir decades later. In 1989, ElNadi was invited back to Cairo to participate in the 54th anniversary of civil aviation in Egypt and received the Order of Merit of the Egyptian Organization of Aerospace. In her 80s, she moved for a time to Toronto to live with a nephew and his family, but she returned at last to Cairo to live out her days. She never married and lived to be 95.
“When something is excessive, it turns to its opposite. The excessive pressure forced upon me made me love freedom.”
— Lotfia ElNadi, from Take off from the Sand,
a biographical documentary.
Witches Hunting
Nazis dubbed them the “Night Witches” (“Nachthexen”)—and they were terrified of these highly skilled Soviet women pilots. This colorful name came about due to the way these fierce female flyers would stop their aircraft engines and silently swoop in before dropping their bombs; the “swooshing” sound as they passed overhead was said to resemble that of a witch’s broomstick. The Soviet Union was struggling mightily in 1941 to stop the Nazis’ advances. Stalin himself ordered the formation of three all-women air force units. One of the first volunteers was 19-year-old Nadezhda Popova, who would go on to become one of the most celebrated heroes of the Soviet Union; she flew 852 missions against the Germans in wobbly wooden biplanes and was shot down several times. Her unit, the 588th Night Bomber Regiment was equipped with obsolete two-seater Polikarpov PO-2 biplanes made of wood and cloth. As such, they weren’t very fast and were extremely unwieldy and hard to maneuver. These pilots had neither radios, guns, nor even parachutes, and they had to navigate using a stopwatch and a paper map. Too exposed to fly during the day, the Night Witches only flew under the cover of darkness. Their mission was to harass German positions and take out troop encampments, storage depots, and supply lines. They were extremely good at their job and were also noteworthy as the first women in the world to fly as military pilots.
“In winter when you’d look out to see your target better, you got frostbite, our feet froze in our boots, but we carried on flying. You had to focus on the target and think how you could hit it. There was no time to give way to emotions.”
– Nadezhda Popova
Eileen Collins – Rocket Woman:
First U.S. Space Shuttle Commander
Ever since she was a little girl, Eileen Collins wanted to be a pilot. She attended Corning Community College in New York, and then completed her B.A. in mathematics and economics at Syracuse University in 1978. After Syracuse, she was chosen along with three other women for Air Force pilot training at Oklahoma’s Vance Air Base; her class was one of the base’s first to include women. After earning her wings in 1979, she stayed on for three years as a T-38 Talon pilot instructor before being transferred to Travis Air Force Base in California, for cross-training in the C-141 Starlifter. She earned a master’s degree in operations research at Stanford in 1986, then a second master’s in space systems management from Webster University in 1989.
That same year, Collins was accepted at the competitive Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California. In 1989, she became only the second woman to graduate as a test pilot. She rose to the rank of Colonel in the Air Force before being being selected by NASA to be an astronaut in 1990. In 1995, Collins became the first female astronaut to pilot a space shuttle mission, serving as second-in-command of the shuttle Discovery. She piloted a second mission on the space shuttle Atlantis in 1997. After having logged over 400 hours in space, she was chosen by NASA to command the space shuttle Columbia on a mission in 1999, and became the first astronaut ever to pilot any of the shuttles through a 360 degree pitch maneuver, as well as the first American woman ever to command a space shuttle. In 2006, Collins retired from NASA to pursue other interests and spend time with her family. Since her retirement, Collins has received numerous awards and honors, including induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and has made appearances as a commentator covering space shuttle flights for CNN.
“My daughter just thinks that all moms
fly the Space Shuttle.”
– Eileen Collins
Eco Awesome: Saving Mother Earth
Whether fighting to save gorillas in the mists of Africa or chaining themselves to trees to stop the logging of old growth forests, women have been at the forefront of the green revolution around the world. Indeed, the person said to be responsible for the birth of the modern environmental movement was a woman born at the beginning of the twentieth century, Rachel Carson.
Being an eco warrior often means putting your very life in danger. Judi
