Raymonde De Laroche
The first women ever to have received a pilot’s licence was Baroness De La Roche - also known as Raymonde De Laraoche. She began her aviation career as a balloonist.
The idea for her to begin flying heavier than air aircrafts however, began over dinner. One evening, whilst supping in 1909, she had a fateful conversation with French aviation pioneer, Charles Voisin. The conversation went something like this:
Baroness: I’ve painted portraits, done sculptures, been on stage, driven racing cars, and made flights in balloons. What more can a girl do?
Charles: How would you like to do something no woman has done before?
Baroness: Nothing would appeal more, my dear Charles. What is it?
Charles: Why not be the first woman in the world to learn to fly an aeroplane?
And that was that.
It wasn’t long before she headed out to the French flying grounds at Chalons, where Voisin himself began to teach her. On March 8, 1910 she received the first pilot's license awarded to a woman. She didn’t stop there. She continued to enter the record books. She entered the 1910 Reims aviation meet as the only female participant and was seriously injured in a crash. That didn’t put her off. After a lengthy recovery, she went on to win the Femina Cup for a nonstop flight of four hours. In 1919, the Baroness set a women's altitude record of 4,785 meters (15,700 feet).
On 8 July 1910 nearly died as a result of a serious aviation accident whilst competing for the Women's prize at Reims in a Voisin biplane. The accident did nothing to curb her interest in aviation.
Her love of flying outweighed the danger. In her own, haunting yet inspiring words: “Most of us spread the perils of a lifetime over a number of years. Others may pack them into a matter of only a few hours. In any case, whatever is to happen will happen. It may well be that I shall tempt fate once too often. Who knows? But it is to the air that I have dedicated myself, and I fly always without the slightest fear.”
Upon recover soon returned to the air and began setting new women's records, including distance (323 km) and altitude (4500 m). World War I temporarily put an end to her career. Soon after the end of the war, she returned again to the air, however in 1919 at Crotoy (flying a Caudron), she suffered another crash. This time it was a fatal one.
In the early days, aviation was glamorous and dangerous, her career lasted 10 years, an impressive length of time in these early days of flight.
In the summer of 1919, de la Roche, who was also a talented engineer, reported to the airfield at Le Crotoy to copilot a new aircraft in hopes of becoming the first female test pilot. Unfortunately, the aircraft went into a dive on its landing approach and both the Baroness and the pilot were killed.