2002 Pioneer Hall of Fame

Fiorenza de Bernardi

Fiorenza de Bernardi has five decades of accomplishments in aviation. A record setter, pioneer and tireless advocate for women’s opportunities in aviation, she has made an indelible mark on aviation. Born May 22, 1928, in Florence, Italy, she learned to fly in 1951. Being the daughter of Col. Mario de Bernardi, a world champion seaplane racer and aerobatics champion helped. She entered air races in Italy and other European countries in 1953. De Bernardi has flown the Twin Otter, Queen Airf , yak -40, and DC-8 aircraft all over the world. She received her glider pilot certificate in the 1960s and was the first women in Italy to earn a glacier pilot certificate. She joined the ninety-nines in 1956. She became the first women airline pilot in Italy and one of the first woman airline pilots in Europe when Aeralpi hired her in 1967 to fly the Twin Otter. She then became the first woman airline caption in Italy in 1969. She trained in Russia on the YAK-40 for Air Terrenia and flew this aircraft as a charter demonstration pilot. She worked as a professional pilot for 18 years until retiring after suffering severe injuries in an automobile accident in 1985. De Bernardi continued her staunch advocacy for women’s advancement in aviation after retirement. She founded and is current vice president of API- Associazione Italiana Donne Pilota , the Italian Woman Pilots Association. This organization is now called ADA- Associazione Donne Aria since its members now include Italian women skydivers. She is president of FPE- European Women Pilots federation. She is the editor of Pink Line, a Gallery of European Women Pilots, a compilation of all pioneering women pilots in Europe. De Bernardi joined the International Society of Women Airlines Pilots in 1985 and continued her efforts. The ISA+21 Merit Scholarship was named for her. This scholarship is awarded annually to a commercial pilot applicant striving to further her career.

Captain Julie E. Clark

Captain Julie E. Clark took her first flying lesson in 1967 while attending the University of California, Santa Barbra. It was at that point in her life she knew she wanted to become an airline pilot like her father, Captain Ernie Clark; however there were a few obstacles in the way. Ironically, it was her father’s fate that had a more profound effect on Julie and her ambition to fly. Captain Ernie Clark flew in the 1960s when cockpit doors were left unlocked. In 1964 a deranged passenger barged into the unlocked cockpit with a gun and killed Captain Clark. That incident brought about the law requiring cockpit doors to remain locked during all commercial flights and is named after Clark. Sadly, her mother had died of accidental causes the previous year, when Julie was only fourteen. The major hurdle in becoming a pilot, besides being orphaned at age 15, was the fact that Clark was a woman. At the beginning of career, she was told “We’re not hiring woman pilots.” “Not” was not an option for her, though. Clark’s first major break came after college in 1976, when Golden West Airlines hired her, their first and only women pilot. In 1977, Hughes Airwest (formerly Pacific Airlines, the same airline her father flew for) hired her and she became one of the first women to fly for a major airline. Besides her 25 years as an airline pilot, Julie has also been performing in air shows for the past 22 years in a 50-year-old military trainer that she restored herself. She has been voted “Performer of the Year” several times. She has flown for Mopar Parts, her corporate sponsor for 15 years, making her the longest sponsored act in show history. Julie says that if she can inspire just one girl at each show to become involved in aviation than she feels she’s done her job.

Doris Lockness

Doris Lockness began flying in the 1930s. Today she holds all of her ratings, from signal-engine land/sea to free balloon, and those in between. She started World War II working for Douglas Aircraft as a Liaison Engineer on the C-4, but then joined Jackie Cochran’s WASPs and went off to Sweetwater, TX, to train. Lockness continued to fly after World War II and earned her helicopter rating in the 1960s, and her commercial gyroplane rating in 1998 (she was only the second woman to hold the rating in a constant speed prop gyroplane). For many years you could pick Lockness out of the crowd at air shows by her Vultee-Stinson war bird, "Swamp Angel", which she flew around the country. Her contributions to the promotion and public acceptance of women as pilots in general aviation have been honored by the ninety-nines in its "Forest of Friendship" and by the OX-5 Pioneers, which has recognized her with both its Legion of Merit Award, Pioneer Women’s Award and Pioneer Hall of Fame. She has also been honored with the Whirly Girls Livingston Award in 1995, and a certificate of honor from the National Aeronautic Association (NAA), as well as the organization’s Elder Statesman of Aviation Award (1991 and 1995). In 1997 Lockness was honored again by the NAA, receiving its Katherine Wright Memorial Award. Lockness aeronautical achievements have inspired many to set higher goals and stretch to reach them, encouraging countless women over more than seven decades to put on their wings and fly.

Blanche Stuart Scott

For Blanch Stuart Scott aviation was natural. She’d set records in automobiles, so when Jerome Fanciulli, of the Curtiss exhibition team asked her if she would like to learn to fly she said, "yes". Glenn Curtiss was not exited by the idea of a woman pilot, but he agreed to give her lessons. He was so sure she should not fly that he inserted a block of wood behind the throttle pedal as a limiter. Despite his efforts Scott managed to fly to an altitude of 40 feet in the air. She continued her lessons and made her debut as a member of the Curtiss exhibition team at a Chicago air meet in 1910. Thus began the career of the woman billed as “The Tomboy of the Air.” Scott flew for several exhibition teams, performing inverted flight and “Death Dives” from 4,000 feet. During her exhibition career she earned up to 500 a week appearing in meets with luminaries as Lincoln Beachy and Harriet Quimby. In 1911, Scott found herself inadvertently setting a record. Scott took off from Minneola one afternoon and impulsively flew 60 miles before landing back at the field. It was the first woman’s long distance flight. Not long after, Scott became the first female test pilot. In 1912 she flew Martin prototypes before the final blueprints for the aircraft had been made. Bothered by the public’s interest in crashes and the lack of opportunities for woman as engineers or mechanics, she retired from flying in 1916 and went into radio and film writing (cutting edge at the time). In the 1950s she came back to aviation as a special consultant to the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton,OH.