Helen Richey and Frances Maisaillas - Endurace Record

Richey and Marsalis were sponsored by Outdoor Girl - a French cosmetics company. In 1933 Helen Richey and Frances Marsalis set a new women’s endurance record - holding their fabric covered aircraft - a Curtiss Thrush - continuously in the air for nearly 10 days, flying around in circles. (The men’s insurance record sat at 27 days!).

They did this by using in air refuelling. The first successful arial refuelling had only occurred 10 years before in 1923.

On one occasion, during the refuelling procedure, the canes on one of the wings was ripped and Richey had to half lean out of the aircraft in order to sew it back up!

The supply plan which delivered the fuel, also dropped food baskets down to them. It is unclear what the toilet arrangements were….. The supply plane made a total of 83 mid-air contacts during the 10 day stunt.

In total they officially held the aircraft up for 237 hours and 43 minutes, covered 23,700 miles in a continuous circuit and used 8 tons of gasoline.

Rather depressingly, after the record, the president of Pennsylvanian Central Airlines, hired Richey when she later applied for the position of co-pilot in 1934. This may seem like a huge leap forward, however the President quietly reassured the US Department of Commerce that he was hiring her only for publicity purposes and had no intention of retaining her in a pilot’s capacity for long.

Even if she initially wasn’t allowed to execute the take off, or ever fly in bad weather as this was considered too physically demanding for the female physic, she made her first flight as co-pilot on 1 January 1934. This was heralded as a break through for women in aviation, and made headlines across America, Nevertheless she she was refused membership to the Airline Pilots association and the other pilots for the company complained directly to the Department of Commerce on the basis that it was taking jobs away from men and would further encourage other women! They also claimed that hiring females was preposterous because they didn't have the strength to handle the aircraft.

Since the publicity stunt worked so well on behalf of the company, they didn’t dare fire her outright. Instead they reduced her schedule to such an extent she was essentially forced to resign after only 8 months.

Endurance Record

Sponsored by a cosmetics company …