Z is for Berta Zeron - Pioneer Women in Aviation: A-Z Challenge

Berta Zeron  
(1924-2000)

Berta Zeron was the first woman in Mexico to earn a commercial pilot's license and the first woman to pilot a jet airplane. She logged over 10,000 hours flight time. You might say she was Mexico's Amelia Earhart.

Berta Zeron was born in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico, but learned to speak English at the age of eleven in Hawaii where her father had enrolled her in school for two years. On the return voyage home by ship, she discovered an airplane on board that had been flown by Amelia Earhart. The memory stuck with her and later became her inspiration to fly.

Berta finished high school in Mexico, and being bilingual, found jobs with different companies, one at the Benito Juarez International Airport. An airline pilot offered her a ride but she turned the offer down, a choice that bothered her a lot later. More jobs would follow and several years would pass before she could seriously consider becoming a pilot. In 1947 she applied for a permit to fly and had her first official flight, but it would be 1964 before soloing in a Cessna 170. With the owner Capitan Francisco Lopez's support, lessons were 100 pesos an hour and apparently, affordable. (Cost is a common drawback to getting  a pilot's license, even today). Berta received her private pilot's license in 1965 and logged 200 hours in Lopez's plane that same year. 

Berta and the Cessna 170

She went on to learn night and instrument flying skills and how to fly twin engine planes. Logging 282 flying hours in a Beechcraft Baron 55 and a PT-17 Stearman for aerobatics, she earned her commercial aviator license in 1966. She then taught others how to fly in Cessna 150s. Berta also took up parachute jumping and entered an air race in a Cessna 150, taking third place. More races followed, the largest being the (women's only) Powder Puff Derby in the U.S. (1969), where she flew a Mooney.

A Beechcraft Baron 55

A PT-17 Stearman

The Cessna 150 - Berta taught others how to fly.

The Mooney. Plane flown in Powder Puff Derby

Berta went on to fly several more planes, working for Commander Mexicana as the executive pilot and flight instructor. She flew a Commander Lark, the Commander Shrike twins, Douglas DC-3 and Beechcraft Twin Bonanza.

The Commander Lark

The Commander Shrike Twins

The Douglas DC-3

The Beechcraft Twin Bonanza

Berta continued her training, obtaining an Unlimited Public Transport Pilot License next, the first of its kind given to a woman in Mexico, and was awarded the 'Emilio Carranza' medal. This allowed her to fly executive jets at Commander Mexicana: the Rockwell Sabreliners and the Sabre 40 (XA-APD (as first officer). She became the first woman to achieve this rank flying an executive jet. Some planes flown during this period:

Turbo Commander 680 (and Turbo Commander 681)

Rockwell Sabreliner

Sabre 40

Berta really wanted to work for a commercial airline. She quit Commander Mexicana, and believing she had the right credentials, applied to a commercial airline, but was rejected based on her age. Had she been hired, she would have been the first woman pilot in Mexico to fly for a commercial airline. Undaunted by it all, it would seem, she received more training in 1982, flew a C-182, and won first place in a Mexican air race. By then she was 58. Over her lifetime Berta piloted 46 airplanes and jets, participated in 8 air races, and jumped in 2 parachute championships. If ever there was a Mexican Amelia Earhart, it had to be Berta Zeron. 

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berta_Zer%C3%B3n
(only source found in English)

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Still swimming everyone?

CONGRATULATIONS!! 

You made it through the April A-Z Challenge!!!

As this is my final post in the series, I want to say THANK YOU TO EVERYONE from the bottom of my heart for stopping by to read Pioneer Women in Aviation, even if you could only read one or two posts (I know that most were l-o-n-g).

I leave you with a song by Eizaveta Icarus from the Miss Todd film soundtrack (a story based on the life of E. Lillian Todd). If you missed Miss Todd, you can click on "T for E. Lillian Todd" to watch (13min). The film is delightful and won the 2013 Academy Awards Gold Medal for best foreign film.

Bye for now......

X is for X-Wing Starfighter - Pioneer Women in Aviation: A-Z Challenge

The X-Wing Starfighter of the fabled Star Wars movies was the aircraft flown by the fighter pilots in the Rebel Alliance.

Versatile, equipped with deflector shields and hyperdrive, it was exceptional in combat. The X-Wing Starfighter was flown by Luke Skywalker in the climatic scene where he destroys the Death Star.

That's about the most you'll get from me on the description of this fictional starfighter, and I only mention it, because I am desperate for an "X" post for my aviator series, and discovered something curious about the Star Wars pilots in my search.

The X-Wing fighter pilots were all male, at least in the original Star Wars trilogy, but did you know that the third film, Return of the Jedi, had cast three female rebel pilots in the attack against the Death Star? George Lucas cut their scenes at the last minute.


So if I may jest, pardon my corny attempt at a poem. Kenda at Words and Such has been instructing me on the basics of haiku. I have the 5 - 7 - 5 syllable rule down, but the rest is a bit of a stretch. I've combined two sets.   

Hello George Lucas
I hope you'll forgive my fuss 
Females you chose not

Not one girl aboard
Those X-Wing fighters that soared
In your lofty corps

 --Sharon Himsl

 

source:
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5968305/george-lucas-cut-female-x-wing-pilots-out-of-return-of-the-jedi-at-the-last-minute
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Revealed-Star-Wars-Originally-Had-Female-X-Wing-Pilots-34581.html

Hopeful in 2015

Mt. St Helens and collapsed crater on right 
after eruption in 1980. You can see Vince's 
reflection through the canopy.

Not a good year for completing my novel. Moving didn't help, but I am tired of making excuses. I had hoped I could start another manuscript when I arrived. Instead, I
have unfinished business. 

Is it fear that keeps me from finishing? The other day I wondered if I had a creative bone left in me to work with. Apparently I do. I sat down to try some flash fiction, and out came the opening scene to another book I am anxious to start. It was so much fun, and uses my new setting here (we live in the desert on a runway!). At any rate, I have been caught in the revision process far too long. It's time to wrap things up, fear or no fear. 

JUST IN CASE IT IS FEAR, I have given myself a visual reminder, a recent trip to Mt. St. Helens in my husband's home built plane, an RV8. I have never been comfortable flying in the mountains, as there is no easy place to land, and weather and all kinds of things can go wrong.....or so my white-knuckled reasoning goes, even though I could not be with a more conscientious pilot. 

But all fears were unfounded. It was a perfectly beautiful day to fly, and THE SCENERY WAS AWESOME. By the way, Mt. St. Helens is Washington State's famous volcano that blew its top in 1980. We lived in Pullman, WA at the time, in a small college town, and the region was covered for miles with a talcum powder-like ash for weeks. Incredible. I still have a jar of ash as a souvenir.

You can see the reflections (my husband's) on the canopy in the photos. Photoshop can remove these, but I like that they are proof we were there. We did a clockwise flight around the mountain and landed in Packwood for lunch with our friends (they were flying an RV7) .

You can see a section of the wing in front. It appears blue 
in the sunlight, but it is really unpainted (bare aluminum).

Up close. (Mt. Adams is in the distance)

Safe and sound on the ground in Packwood, WA

Happy Labor Day: Time to Rest

That's me right now, dog tired and ready for bed. I think I'll write this post and play the rest of the weekend. It's Labor Day weekend after all. But first, let me digress a bit, and recall some of my working days.

My first job (aside from babysitting) was picking raspberries on a large farm in Puyallup (WA). I was a city girl (Tacoma), so waiting on the corner for the hay truck to arrive and then riding in the back with others my age was fun. I was 14. But it didn't last long. My girlfriend and I had a bit too much fun one day and got kicked off the farm for a berry fight.

My second job was sales clerking and modeling for a Tacoma department store. I was on the store's fashion board for my high school and one of my duties was to write a fashion article for the local newspaper. Looking back, I was pretty proud of that piece. I was 16 and worked on and off for three more years. 

My third job was in college working for the school's food service. I worked in the back filling the dishwasher and cleaning tables. Not a pretty job, now that I think of it, but it provided the spending money my blue collar parents could ill afford. I was their only child of three to attend a 4-year college.

My fourth job was in Tacoma with Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone as a telephone operator. It was the scariest job I had ever attempted. Training was quite intense for the next month. One other girl training with me actually gave up and quit. Our office covered a large lata of cities, and calls to the state capitol, Olympia, were not uncommon. Person to person calls to the governor or a congressman's office were the scariest. All operators had to be trained in proper protocol. Emergency calls required special training as well. It was also during the Vietnam War. I learned how to patch calls to soldiers in the field and their wives at two nearby bases, Fort Lewis and McChord. I was 19 and also engaged to be married.   

My fifth job was to occur in Biloxi, Mississippi, where my new husband (Vince) was stationed in the Air Force. The job never happened. The plan was to transfer to Southern Bell Telephone, but the weekend of my arrival Hurricane Camille hit. The storm struck with a fury and destroyed much of the gulf coast. Over 100 people died in Biloxi alone. Telephone lines were down, electricity was out, and water had to be trucked in when it was over. The area was devastated for months to come. The telephone company gave me a leave of absence for the next six months.  

My fifth job finally materialized with Southwestern Bell in Clovis, New Mexico where Vince was stationed next. It was an old fashion office, compared to the modern Tacoma office. The switchboard cords were twice the diameter, and numbers were actually dialed on rotary dials, instead of key pads. We had pencils with big fat balls that we used to dial the numbers. "One ringey-dingey, two ringey-dingey...." Does anyone remember that line in comedian Lily Tomlin's operator skit? That was me in Clovis! How funny that office was, as I think back. It is also where I got sent home for wearing culottes. Dress codes were so strict then (another story....).

My sixth job was back in Tacoma with Pacific NW Bell again. Vince had been sent to a remote base in Turkey for a year. The only good thing about that year was meeting Vince in Germany for R&R. We had three wonderful weeks together.

My seventh job was in Macon, Georgia with Southern Bell. Vince was stationed about 30 miles away in Warner Robbins. Still an operator, I felt I had found the perfect position for transferring in the telephone company. Bell operators had the same training all over the country. But I had another unexpected learning curve while there. In the 1970s racial tension in the south was still pretty high. On the job discrimination was illegal but practiced nonetheless. I struggled too with the southern dialect, which often sounded like a different language. My ear never adapted. I was there about a year, until our daughter was born.

 My eighth job was in Olympia, WA with Pacific NW Bell again.. Vince was out the service and had decided to go to school. Jobs were in short supply for ex-military, but the phone company again came through for me. I hated working with a three month old baby at home, but one of us had to work. The job lasted about a year. I was pregnant with my son and morning sickness was hard. I quit and we decided to live cheaply so I could stay home. 

My ninth job was with General Telephone in Moscow, Idaho three  years later (eventually in Pullman, WA across the border). Finances were tight and I returned to work with a heavy heart. My son was three, and daughter five. I started as a telephone operator, but worked several other positions over the next 15 years. Eventually, the office was shut down, as many other phone company offices began doing across the nation. The industry was changing rapidly as new telephone technology advanced. As I sit playing with apps on my new Android smart phone, I think what a different world it is today. 

My Tenth and most recent job (outside the home) was with Washington State University, where I edited food science articles and books for a food engineering professor and his team. It lasted ten years, and I was ready to leave when the time came. Writing fiction and reading food science manuscripts is really a conflict of interest.

And so, my eleventh job is here, with this blog, and the writing I am doing on my novel. It is perhaps the job I have wanted to do most. Here is some food for thought: "Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else." (James M. Barrie)

How about you? Do you have a long roll call of jobs, too, or are you just starting out? You might be surprised at just how hard you have already worked!    

Copyright 2013 © Sharon Himsl

Eerie Sponges: Stereoviews A-Z

Eerie. These sponges remind me of the old horror movie, The Blob. Movie previews showed people running out of a theater, screaming for their lives, chased by a giant glob of goo. (Hmm....the crowd in front might want to think about moving). 

There were two Blob movies made, the first in 1958 and a remake in 1988. I don't remember seeing either, just the previews. The 1958 movie trailer can still be found online.

Sponge Market, Key West, Florida (ca. 1890s)

I have never seen sponge harvested nor been to a sponge market. Sponge was first commercially harvested in Key West in the 1850s. The market and profits grew at a phenomenal rate, and by 1890, Key West was the sponge capital of the world. At the turn of the century, there were 350 boats harvesting sponge according to records. However, profits and yields lasted only a short time. Fungus destroyed the sponge beds and cheaper synthetic sponges became available. Today the sponge beds are slowly growing back. 

[Source: http://florida-agriculture.com/consumers/recreation/waterfront/keywest.html];

[Gravseth family archive; Cosmopolitan series 1890s]; Copyright 2013 © Sharon Himsl

Sharon M. Himsl

Writer/Author. Blogging since 2011. 
Published with Evernight Teen: 
~~The Shells of Mersing