Betty Skelton Erde

Betty Skelton Frankman Erde (born June 28, 1926) is a retired land speed record car driver and acrobatic airplane pilot.

Early years

She was born Betty Skelton in Pensacola, Florida, U.S.. Her parents were teenagers and Betty was their only child. As a toddler, she was fascinated by the airplane takeoffs and landings at the Naval Air Station and played with model airplanes, not dolls. At the age of eight, she convinced her parents that she wanted to fly and read every aviation book available. The Skeltons drove her out to the municipal airport at every opportunity and Betty hopped rides whenever a pilot had a spare seat. A young Navy Ensign, Kenneth Wright, began teaching the entire family to fly. Betty soloed in a Taylorcraft airplane when she was 12 years old. After receiving her Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) pilot’s license at age 16, Betty waited patiently to turn 18½, the minimum age required for ferry pilots in the WASP program. Unfortunately, the only flying program that accepted women ended four months before Betty reached the required age. [http://www.autopilotmagazine.com/articles/articleview.aspx?artID=1309 AutoPilot Magazine: Feb/Mar 2008-Betty Skelton Frankman Erde by Connie Watjen] ]

During her teenage years, Betty flew whenever she could. She graduated from high school in 1944 and wanted a career in aviation, so she started with a clerical position at Eastern Airlines [http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/skelton.html Monash University website: Hargrave the Pioneers-Betty Skelton] ] , working at night. The job allowed her to rent planes during the day.

She received her commercial rating at 18, her flight instructor rating at 19, joined the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), and began instructing at the Peter O. Knight Airport in Tampa. While still working for Eastern, she earned her single-engine land and sea, and multi-engine ratings.

Aerobatics

She first started aerobatic flying in a Fairchild PT-19 when a Tampa airport manager suggested she learn a loop and a roll for the local amateur airshow. Clem Whitteneck, a famous aerobatic pilot of the 1930s, helped Betty hone her skills and master her loops and rolls within two weeks."You really learned what excitement was then," she said. Because neither the military or commercial airlines would accept a female pilot, air shows provided the only opportunity for her to work as a pilot, other than instructing. She bought her own aircraft, a 1929 Great Lakes 2T-1A Sport Trainer biplane and began her profession career in 1946 at the Southeastern Air Exposition in Jacksonville, Florida, along with a new US Navy exhibition team, the Blue Angels. She mastered dozens of tricks, but her most impressive maneuver involved cutting a ribbon strung between two fishing poles with her propeller, while flying upside down convert|10|ft|m off the ground. She held the rank of Major in the CAP and became a test pilot, occasionally flying helicopters, jets, blimps and gliders.

In 1948, she bought a rare Pitts Special — a lightweight (convert|544|lb|kg), red-and-white biplane designed for aerobatics. But while Erde was soaring in popularity, she also was a rarity — a young, beautiful woman in a male-dominated world of dangerous stunt flying. She had a small Chihuahua named, "Little Tinker", who flew with her in her lap.

Ms. Skelton was US Female Aerobatic Champion in 1948, 1949 and 1950. Her victories resulted in her plane, "L’il Stinker" becoming the most famous acrobatic aircraft in the world. After her third championship, she was frustrated because there were no other challenges in acrobatics and burned out from the busy and stressful air show circuit. She sold the plane in 1951, but she and first husband Don Frankman reacquired the airplane and donated it to the Smithsonian in 1985. Her little, open-cockpit aerobatic plane is now on display (inverted, of course) at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport, part of the National Air and Space Museum.

In 1949 she set the world light-plane altitude record of convert|25763|ft|m in a Piper Cub. Two years later, she broke her own altitude record with a flight of convert|29050|ft|m, also in a Piper Cub. [http://nationalaviation.blade6.donet.com/components/content_manager_v02/view_nahf/htdocs/menu_ps.asp?NodeID=-2014698337&group_ID=1134656385&Parent_ID=-1 National Aviation Hall of Fame: Enshrinee list-Betty Skelton Frankman] ] She held the world speed record for piston engine aircraft: convert|421.6|mi/h|km/h|1|abbr=on over a 3 km course in a P-51 Mustang racing plane.

In 1959, Skelton was the first woman to undergo NASA's physical and psychological tests; identical to those given to the Mercury 7 astronauts. NASA administered the tests at the request of "Look Magazine" for an article.

I complained that NASA wasn't giving more thought to women pilots ... I wanted very much to fly in the Navy ... But all they would do is laugh when I asked.

Land racing

Skelton moved to North Carolina in 1951 where she flew charter flights out of Raleigh. In 1953, the founder of NASCAR asked Skelton to fly some auto racers from Pennsylvania to North Carolina. She and Bill France, Sr. became good friends.

France invited Skelton to Daytona Beach during speed week in February, 1954 where she drove the pace car at Daytona, then climbed into a Dodge sedan and was clocked at convert|105.88|mi/h|km/h|2|abbr=on on the beach sand, setting a stock car speed record for women. Skelton had discovered her second passsion.

As the auto industry’s first female test driver, she drove the jump boat, “L’il Miss Dodge,” over a 1955 Custom Royal Lancer on a ramp at Florida’s Cypress Gardens. In 1956, Betty became one of the a top women advertising executives working with General Motors in print, television, and in person at auto shows. Betty earned a total of four Feminine World Land Speed Records and set a transcontinental speed record.

She raced across the South American Andes, down Mexico's Baja Peninsula and set records at the Chrysler proving grounds in Michigan. She was the first woman to drive a jet car over convert|300|mi/h|km/h|abbr=on at the Bonneville Salt Flats. She also set three women’s land speed records at the Daytona Beach Road Course, [http://ibistro.dos.state.fl.us/uhtbin/cgisirsi.exe/x/x/0/5?library=PHOTO&item_type=PHOTOGRAPH&searchdata1=NASCAR Florida Photographic Collection information] , Retrieved April 2 2007] the last one being convert|156.99|mi/h|km/h|2|abbr=on in 1956.

While Skelton was a Chevrolet employee, she set records with Corvettes, owning 10 in all.

"I would venture to say there is no other woman in the world with all the attributes of this woman," France once remarked. "The most impressive of them all is her surprising and outstanding ever-present femininity, even when tackling a man's job."

Personal life

Skelton married Hollywood TV director/producer and Navy veteran Donald A. Frankman in 1965. They retired in the 1970s and moved to Florida, where she kept a seaplane docked at their lakefront home in Winter Haven. Frankman died in 2001, and Betty cut back on flying. "I just felt I wasn't as safe as I used to be," she said.

In 2005, she married Dr. Allan Erde, a retired Navy surgeon [http://wire.jacksonville.com/pstories/us/20080813/318126812.shtml Florida Times-Union: August 13, 2008-What a ride: Woman, 82, inducted into Hall of Fame by Tamara Lush] ] and they reside in The Villages, Florida. At 82, she and her husband live in a retirement community where most residents are content to putter around in golf carts. Not Betty: she drives a blazing red Corvette convertible that matches her red hair. When she says, "I like fast cars," she really means it.

Awards

*She was inducted in the Florida Sports Hall of Fame, 1977"Florida Sports Hall of Fame Yearbook & Souvenir Program", April 19, 1993.]
*She was inducted in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame
*She was inducted in the NASCAR International Automotive Hall of Fame, 1983 - the 1st woman
*She was inducted in the International Aerobatic Club Hall of Fame, 1988
*She was inducted in the Florida Women's Hall of Fame, 1993 [ [http://www.fcsw.net/halloffame/WHOFbios/betty_skelton_frankman.htm Florida Commission on the Status of Women: Members of the Florida Women's Hall of Fame-Betty Skelton Frankman] ]
*She was inducted in the Corvette Hall of fame, 2001 [ [http://www.corvettemuseum.com/library-archives/hof/index.shtml National Corvette Museum: Archives-Hall of Fame members] ]
*She was inducted in the International Council of Air Shows Foundation Hall of Fame, 2003 [ [http://www.icasfoundation.org/hall_fame/2003/hf_skelton.htm International Council of Air Shows Foundation: Hall of Fame-BETTY SKELTON FRANKMAN] ]
*She was inducted in the National Aviation Hall of Fame, 2005 [ [http://encarta.msn.com/media_701500502/national_aviation_hall_of_fame_members.html ENCARTA: National Aviation Hall of Fame Members] ]
*She was inducted in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, 2008 - the 5th woman

Honors

In 1988 the IAC established the Betty Skelton First Lady of Aerobatics Trophy, awarded to the highest scoring female in national competition.

References

External links