They Came From Above Trivia Quiz

Answer: Receive a pilot's licence

Raymonde de Laroche (real name Elise Raymonde Deroche) first became interested in aviation after witnessing a presentation by the Wright brothers at the exposition in Paris in 1908. Two years later, she succeeded in her goal of becoming the first licensed female pilot. Over the period of 1910-1919 she participated in several exhibitions and aviation shows in Europe and North Africa. During one of these events, in St. Petersburg, she had a personal audience with Tsar Nicholas II, who, by addressing her as Baroness de Laroche, gave an aura of authenticity to the title that was, in fact, no more than an affectionate nickname (Raymonde de Laroche was the daughter of a plumber). Like many early aviators, she was involved in several serious airplane crashes over the course of her career, the last of which, in July 1919 at Le Crotoy, claimed her life.

Sophie Blanchard was the first woman to professionally pilot a hot-air balloon, while Helen Richey was the first woman to be hired as a pilot for a U.S. commercial airline.

Answer: Mayfly

For Lilian Bland in 1909, building her own aircraft was the only way to realise her newly arisen passion for flying, as nobody in Ireland, where she lived at the time, had yet accomplished a powered flight. Basing her design on an early successful model of a biplane, she built Mayfly from spruce, bamboo and canvas, and even at one time tried to substitute (though unsuccessfully) some missing parts of an engine and petrol tank with an empty whisky bottle and her deaf aunt's ear trumpet. Mayfly flew successfully for the first time in August 1910. Lilian Bland's aviation career was not long, however, as already at the end of 1910 she gave in to her father's wishes and gave up flying in favour of driving a car.

The (Wright) Flyer was the name of the famous biplane built by the Wright brothers - probably the first machine in history to achieve a powered flight. The Vin Fiz was the first airplane to fly from coast to coast across the continental U.S. in 1911. Little Stinker was the plane flown by Betty Skelton in the U.S. Female Aerobatic Competitions in the 1940s.

Answer: Russian

Eugenie Mikhailovna Shakhovskaya, born to a rich merchant family in St.Petersburg, received her pilot's licence in 1911 at the age of 22. She gave up flying for a time after a serious accident in 1913 that resulted in the death of her co-pilot. However, in November 1914, after the outbreak of the World War I, she petitioned Tsar Nicholas II to allow her to serve as a military pilot.

Her military career was very short - she was discharged at the end of December 1914. Little is known about her time in the army, but the majority of sources agree that she only flew reconnaissance missions and never participated in combat flights.

Answer: Amy Johnson

Amy Johnson, born in Yorkshire in 1903, first took up flying as a hobby at the age of 26, but proceeded to break several records and achieve a few firsts in aviation. Besides her famous flight from Britain to Australia, after which she shot to international aviation stardom, she was also the first pilot to fly from London to Moscow in one day. Later she broke time records for flying from Britain to Japan, Britain to India and from London to Cape Town. She died under mysterious circumstances in 1941 in an airplane crush over the Thames Estuary.

Harriet Quimby was the first woman to fly across the English Channel, Marjorie Stinson was the first female airmail pilot, and Betty Miller was the first woman pilot to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.

Answer: 1930s

Helen Richey was the first woman to be hired as a pilot for a U.S. commercial airline when she accepted the job from Central Airlines in 1934. However, the decision of the airline to hire a female pilot proved to be more of a publicity stunt than the dawn of a new era for women in aviation.

The airline wanted Richey to spend considerably more time on the ground as a public relations agent than in the airplane cockpit doing her actual job. When her male colleagues rejected her application for union membership and the airline announced that it would only let her fly in good weather, Helen Richey made a decision to resign from her position after only 10 months on the job.

Answer: First woman to break the sound barrier

At the time of her death in 1980, the number of speed, altitude and distance records set by Jacqueline Cochran over the course of her long career exceeded the number of records set by any other pilot, whether male or female. Being the first woman to break the sound barrier was also far from the only first achieved by her in the field of aviation (to name a few, she was the first pilot to make a blind landing and the first to fly in ultra-high altitudes with an oxygen mask). She contributed greatly to the creation and operation of the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Cochran had also initially sponsored the Mercury 13 program, the first attempt at training women astronauts in the 1960s, although she later became disillusioned with the idea.

First woman to fly a plane in combat was probably Sabiha Gökçen when fighting against the Dersim rebellion in eastern Turkey in 1937, while Bobbi Trout was the first woman to perform in-flight aerial refuelling and Florence "Pancho" Barnes was the first woman stunt pilot.

Answer: Seagull

Valentina Tereshkova hadn't had any experience as a pilot prior to being chosen for the space program along with four other women, but was considered a strong candidate due to the 126 parachute jumps she had completed. Parachuting was an indispensable skill for cosmonauts at the time as the returning space capsules crash-landed on Earth and their occupants had to parachute out moments before the impact. Tereshkova spent the total of 2 days, 23 hours, and 12 mins in space, and orbited the Earth 48 times.

It was her only space flight, although she has stated that she would have been keen to go back had the opportunity presented itself. In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova married fellow cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev, and their daughter, Elena, became the first child born to parents who had both travelled to space.

Answer: 29 days

It was probably just a strange coincidence, but at the time when Jerrie Mock obtained a permit for her around-the-world flight, another woman by the name of Joan Merriam Smith was preparing to do the same (although the latter wanted not only to complete the flight, but to do so by following the route planned out by Amelia Earhart - the dream she had held since childhood).

Although neither of the two admitted that they were in a race for the title of the first female pilot to fly solo around the world, both women took steps to try to ensure their victory in this race. Geraldine Mock had more luck on her side and, although Smith had left two days earlier than her, she managed to complete her flight 25 days before her rival.

Answer: Space shuttle

During the course of her career, Eileen Collins flew more than 30 types of aircraft, but it was her 1995 flight on the space shuttle, the first in the course of the joint Russian-American Shuttle-Mir program, that made her a household name. In 1999, she also became the first female commander of a U.S. spacecraft when she commanded the space shuttle mission STS-93. During her second mission as a space shuttle commander, in 2005, she became the first astronaut to pilot the shuttle through a full 360-degree pitch manoeuvre.

In total, Eileen Collins completed 4 spaceflights and spent 38 days, 8 hours, and 10 mins in space.

Answer: Visit space as a self-funded tourist

For Anousheh Ansari, the decision to visit space as a tourist (or "spaceflight participant" - her preferred term) was not made on a whim. Following up on her childhood dream of space, she has used the resources acquired through her entrepreneurship ventures to sponsor and promote the development of private space flight. She has invested $10m dollars in the X Foundation, an organisation that aims to support advances in human space flight. She is also currently involved in the project aimed at the development of a fleet of suborbital vehicles and related infrastructure in the UAE and Singapore.

Svetlana Savitskaya was the first woman to complete a spacewalk, while Susan Helms was the first female crew member and flight engineer on the ISS. Peggy Whitson, in 2008, became the first woman to serve as a space station commander.