Major Deanna(Dee) Brasseur

Iris Cummings Critchell

Marie Marvingt

2007 Pioneer Hall of Fame

Major Deanna(Dee) Brasseur
Dee Brasseur enrolled in the Canadian Forces in 1972 as an Administrative Clerk with the rank of Private. Soon after, she was commissioned under the Officer Candidate Training Program. When the Canadian Forces announced a trial program in 1979 to employ women in the pilot career field, Brasseur volunteered and successfully graduated as one of the first three women to earn their wings in 1981.

She was the first woman jet pilot instructor assigned to 2 Canadian Forces Flying Training School (2CFFTS), Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (1981-85) and the first woman pilot to be awarded a Flight Commander position as the T-33 Flight Commander with Base Flight Cold Lake, Alberta (1986-88).

In 1988 Brasseur was one of the first two women pilots selected to train on a jet fighter plane. She progressed through 419 Squadron Basic Fighter Training on the CF-5 Freedom Fighter, and 410 Squadron Operational Training Unit to fly the CF-18 Hornet. She served as a line pilot and Squadron Plans Officer with 416 Tactical Fighter Squadron, Cold Lake, Alberta (1989-90). Major Brasseur was then assigned as the first woman Military Aircraft Accident Investigator, and became the Senior Staff Officer at the Department of National Defence Headquarters responsible for supervising all Canadian Forces Jet Trainers and Fighter Aircraft.

In 1994, she took an early retirement to establish her own business. She wrote “Achieve It: A Personal Success Journal” and established Unlimited Horizons, a professional speaking, performance coaching and training business committed to ‘unlocking the magnificence within each and everyone’ through teaching the physiology and psychology of excellence.

In 1995, Brasseur formed, trained and led the Canadian Precision Flying team (all female) to compete in the 1996 FAI World Precision Flying Championships held in Fort Worth, Texas. Officially recognized by the government for her contributions in Canadian aviation, Brasseur was inducted as a Member of the Order of Canada in February 1999.

Following the events of 9/11/2001 and Canada’s decision to commit troops to the war against terrorism in Afghanistan, Major Brasseur re-enrolled in the Canadian Forces Reserve in September 2002. She is currently employed on the Air Staff at National Defence Headquarters in the Directorate of Air Strategic Planning, and as the Chief of Staff Harassment Advisor and Military Co-Chair of the Defence Women’s Advisory Organization.

Iris Cummings Critchell
An athlete in her youth, Iris Cummings Critchell was a member of the U.S. Olympic Swimming Team in Berlin in 1936, and reigned as U.S. women’s 200-meter breaststroke champion from 1936 to 1939.

Critchell was a member of the first Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) at the University of Southern California (USC), graduating from the Advanced Acrobatics course in 1940. She was member of the second class of women recruited by Jacqueline Cochran for Army flight training in Houston, earning her wings in May 1943 as a member of WASP Class 43-2. She was assigned to the 6th Ferrying Group at Long Beach, California, serving as a civilian ferry pilot with the Air Transport Command Ferrying Division until the WASP were deactivated on December 20, 1944. She flew 18 types of military aircraft as pilot in command, including the A-24, P-39, P-40, P-47, P-51, C-47, A-20, B-25, P-38, and P-61.

Critchell developed the first aviation curriculum for the USC College of Aeronautics in beginning in 1946. She taught Primary, Instrument, Commercial and Instructor courses and gave all the instrument flight instruction in war-surplus Vultee BT-13 trainers.

In the late 1950s, Critchell’s instruction of, and subsequent friendship with, Isabel Bates spawned a unique curriculum that used the airplane as an educational tool to broaden and enhance the education of young people beginning with junior high and high school. Iris and her husband Howard established the Bates Foundation college-age program at Harvey Mudd College of Science and Engineering at the Claremont Colleges in 1962. Iris served as Director of the Bates Aeronautics Program, and for 28 years, as Lecturer in Aeronautics on the college faculty. After retirement to Emeritus status, she continued some teaching and counseling until 1996.

Critchell has been active in the Ninety-Nines since 1952. She competed in the All Woman Transcontinental Air Race (AWTAR) 15 times, placing in the top 10 five times. She served on the Race Board nine years and on the Amelia Earhart Memorial Scholarship Committee for six years.

Critchell holds the following pilot ratings: Airline Transport, Commercial Single Engine Sea, Multiengine Land, Instrument and Glider; Instructor, Airplanes, Single and Multiengine, Instrument; Ground Instructor, Advanced and Instrument. She has been a FAA Designated Pilot Examiner for more than 20 years. In October 2007, Critchell was honored with the FAA Wright Brothers “Master Pilot” Award for “Fifty years of dedicated service, technical expertise, professionalism, and many other outstanding contributions that further the cause of Aviation Safety.”

Marie Marvingt
A world class athlete, Marie Marvingt won gold medals in skiing, bobsledding, skating, rifle shooting and numerous other events. She was the only person in history to earn the gold medal of the French National Sports Federation “For All Sports” awarded in 1910. She was so successful in sports that she was named in a 1914 anti-feminist book as setting a poor example for young women, because she did not participate in sports for entertainment or health, but displayed unladylike characteristics in that “she competes fervently” and “really tries to win.”

Marvingt learned to pilot free balloons in 1901, later becoming the first French woman to obtain a balloon pilot’s license. She won numerous competitions and set records for French balloon pilots (male and female), and was the first woman to pilot a balloon from the Continent to England over the English Channel on 26 October 1909.

On 10 June 1910, Marvingt became the third woman in the world to earn a fixed wing pilot’s license, following Baroness Raymonde de LaRoche and Marthe Niel. She became the holder of the first formally recognized woman’s flying record, with a flight of 53 minutes during which she flew 42 kilometers on 27 November 1910.

She continued flying and competing until World War I. There is evidence in official French records (Marvingt’s Legion of Honor Citation) that she piloted a bomber on at least two occasions during attacks on German-occupied Frescaty (near Metz) in 1915. She may have been the first woman to pilot an aircraft in combat.

Marvingt’s greatest achievement was her life-long effort to make the airplane an integral part of medical support for both civilian and military casualties. As early as 1910, she recommended the creation of airplane ambulances, and by 1912 she had designed a practical one and collected public donations to order it from the Deperdussin Factory. World War I interfered, but after the war she eventually gave about 6000 public conferences on five continents, directed and acted in two films, and established civil air ambulances in French Colonies in Northern Africa. She recognized the need for Flight Nurses, and was instrumental in creating the first training program for this category of medical personnel. When formal training was established in France, she became the world’s first certified Flight Nurse.

Marvingt passed away in 1963, but her contributions to aviation, women in aviation, and aeromedical evacuation are vast and far-reaching, even though her name is not well-known outside of France. Literally millions of sick and injured people worldwide have benefited from her tireless pioneering work to create the air ambulance service.

Past WAI
Pioneers