Author: Julia Lauria-Blum

The sun rose on the morning of October 14, 1947 and U.S. Air Force test pilot, Captain Charles ‘Chuck’ Yeager walked toward a hangar at Muroc Army Air Base for a flight briefing. It was the day of Yeager’s ninth powered flight in a Bell X-1 experimental aircraft from the flat, dry lakebed in the southern California high desert where the first generation of American jets underwent years of rigorous testing. As he strode past the X-1, a flight team flocked over the neon orange aircraft. Designed with a nose shaped like a .50 caliber bullet and powered by a…

On June 14, 2016, two years after comparing LaGuardia Airport to a ‘Third World country”, Vice President Joe Biden stood at a podium beside New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to praise a $4 billion redevelopment project at the airport’s groundbreaking ceremony. The Vice-President was there to join Governor Cuomo in announcing the complete overhaul of the outdated, overcrowded & decaying ‘vintage’ airport that was originally dedicated in October 1939 as New York Municipal Airport, opening on December 9th of that same year. Shortly thereafter “LaGuardia Field” was tagged on to the name and within a year of its opening, NY…

On September 18, 1932 pilot, James Banning took off from Dycer Airport, Los Angeles in an orange and black Alexander Eaglerock biplane along with his mechanic Thomas C. Allen, to embark on a historic 3,000 mile journey across the U.S.A in a rickety airplane put together with surplus parts and a sputtering 14-year old Curtiss engine. Zigzagging across the country, through Arizona and Texas, then northeast through Oklahoma, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh, PA, they reached their final destination, touching down in Valley Stream, Long Island after a total of 41 hours and 27 minutes aloft, in a span of 21…

“I saw the alchemy of perspective reduce my world, and all my other life, to grains in a cup. I learned to watch, to put my trust in other hands than mine. And I learned to wander. I learned what every dreaming child needs to know – that no horizon is so far that you cannot get above it or beyond it.” – Beryl Markham – West With the Night One can imagine that from the first moment humankind gazed skyward, came the yearning to soar with the birds above. Mythic figures and legends were created by early civilizations around…

On June 12, 2001, a JetBlue airliner touched down at JFK International and taxied to its gate after a two-and-a-half-hour flight north from West Palm Beach. On the other end of the jetway, I stood awaiting a woman who I had only corresponded with on the telephone and through the U.S. Mail in the months prior to her arrival. After accepting my invitation to attend the dedication of a new exhibit honoring the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) of WWII that I had curated at the American Airpower Museum in Farmingdale, Long Island, my special guest was to be the…

“I discovered early that the hardest thing to overcome is not a physical disability, but the mental condition which it induces. The world, I found, has a way of taking a man pretty much at his own rating.” Alexander de Seversky When thinking of the names of pioneering innovators who made their mark on history through their intellect, vision, or a brilliant invention, the names Edison, Bell, and Curie may come to mind. Of lesser notoriety, but no less a visionary, was Russian emigre Alexander P. de Seversky, a man of steadfast determination and foresight who in his lifetime became a…

Jackie Cochran climbed to 45,000 feet in a Canadair F-86 Sabre jet, leaving a contrail of ice crystals behind her path. Achieving the highest altitude necessary, she did a split “S” curve to start a full-power, nearly vertical dive. Keeping the throttle at full power, Cochran read the numbers on the Machmeter aloud to Chuck Yeager, her good friend and the pilot of her chase plane. Facedown and diving at Mach 1 with blood surging to her brain she pulled out of the dive through the sound barrier becoming the first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound…

The 20-year period between World War I and World War II, commonly referred to as the ‘Golden Age of Aviation’, was an exhilarating era when manned flight ‘came of age’. Between 1919 and 1929, aviation was still in its infancy, but with technological advances, the design and construction of ‘aeroplanes’ progressed from slow, wood-framed and fabric covered biplanes to fast, more efficient and powerful metal monoplanes. As the technology of aviation evolved, the pioneers of flight competed for speed, endurance, distance and altitude records, making monumental contributions to the progression of aviation in both the military and civilian arenas. One…

Elise Raymonde Deroche was born in 1882 in Paris, France. Having a fondness for sports as a child and then for motorcycles, automobiles and ballooning, she later became an actress, taking the stage name of Baroness Raymonde de Laroche. Ever the thrill seeker, de Laroche then pursued another lofty quest, that of flying an aeroplane. In 1909, this was an especially lofty goal for a woman of her era and Raymonde appealed to her friend, French aviator and airplane builder, Charles Voisin to instruct her on how to fly. On March 8, 1910 Raymonde de Laroche became the first woman…

In 1926, 14-year-old Lee Ya-Ching walked onto a movie set where a director, taken by her beauty, offered her the opportunity to act in silent films. Thus, began Lee’s career as a movie actress. Taking the stage name Li Dandan, she starred in eight films, becoming one of China’s most popular film actresses during her teen years. In 1928 she was offered the lead role of Hua Mulan in “Mulan Joins the Army”. In this film adaptation of the Hua Mulan legend, Lee plays a young woman protagonist who lives with her elderly father during the Northern Wei Dynasty. When…