Biographical Sketches

LOUISE McPHETRIDGE THADEN

Born: November 12, 1905    In: Bentonville, AR
Died: November 9, 1979    In: High Point, NC

Louise McPhetridge Thaden set a number of speed and endurance records in the early years of aviation. Switching careers from journalism to physical education, she went with the Travel Air Corporation in 1927 as a salesperson. She received her pilot license in May 1928, and on Dec 7 of that year, set a new altitude record of 20,260’ in a Hisso-powered Travel Air 3000. Three months later she set a new U.S. women’s endurance record, remaining aloft in the same Travel Air for 22h:03m.

In 1929 she earned the coveted transport pilot license #1943, the fourth woman to do so. That year she won the National Women’s Air Derby in a Travel Air B-4000 [R571H], then set a refueling duration record (with Frances Marsalis) of 196 hours, a lightplane speed record, and a new east-west speed record. 1929 was also memorable for her as the year of her marriage to pilot and aero engineer Herbert Von Thaden. The Thadens moved to Philadelphia, where his Thaden T-4 all-metal prototype was purchased by the Pittsburgh Metal Airplane Corp, in which she worked as P/R Director. She also flew the Thaden plane [C502V] in the 1931 NAR Cross-Country Derby, placing fifth. (GMC acquired that company later that year, merged it with Fokker, and moved operations to New Jersey.)

Throughout the ’30s she continued to set new altitude, endurance, and speed records. Another endurance flight followed and another record fell, that one on Aug 14, 1932 -- 8d:4h:5m in a Curtiss Thrush (with Frances Marsalis) [NR9142]. She and three other women flyers toured the nation in 1935 for the Bureau of Commerce, advocating air-marking of towns as cross-country piloting aids, and obtained approval from every state to the amount of 16,000 markers at a cost of more than $1 million. In 1936 she became the first woman to win the National Air Races’ Bendix Trophy (with Blanche Noyes), flying a Beech C17R [NR15835] -- time: 14h:55m from NYC’s Floyd Bennett Field to Los Angeles’ Mines Field -- for which she received aviation’s highest honor, the Harmon Trophy. After that, the Beech factory hired her as a demonstrator pilot.

Thaden was co-founder with Amelia Earhart of the Ninety-Nines organization of women pilots in 1931, serving as an officer for six years, and later was closely associated with the Civil Air Patrol and Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service (1959-61). She retired from full-time competition in 1938 to spend more time with her family. Bentonville’s airport is named after Louise Thaden in 1951 and the National (Beechcraft) Staggerwing Museum was named after her in 1974.

Enshrined in National Aviation Hall of Fame 1999. (Peter Bergen)

REFERENCES:
High, Wide, and Frightened; autobiography (? 1938)

Denotes an individual known to have soloed an aircraft prior to December 16, 1917, whether they were members of the "Early Birds of Aviation" Organization or not.