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NBAA is planning to recognize the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) with the Meritorious Service to Aviation Award, one of the association’s highest honors. To be presented during NBAA’s 2018 convention in October, the Meritorious Service award honors “lifelong contributions to aviation.”
Erin Miller will accept the award on behalf of the WASP. Miller played an instrumental role in passage of legislation in 2016 that provided inurnment rights for WASP at Arlington National Cemetery. She made that push after her grandmother, Elaine Harmon, a WASP, passed away.
The WASP, formed to support the Army Air Forces during World War II, traces its roots to 1942. With male pilots in short supply and required for the war, the Army was in dire need of pilots to deliver training aircraft to flight schools, NBAA recounted. Twenty-eight women pilots volunteered for the ferrying jobs and established the first female squadron in summer 1942. That served as the genesis of the WASP organization, which encompassed two civilian-flying groups that had formed in the volunteer effort: the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron and the Women's Flying Training Detachment, according to the National WASP WWII Museum.
Ultimately, more than 1,100 WASP pilots flew more than 60 million miles and delivered 12,650 airplanes, including every aircraft in the Army’s arsenal. They ferried airplanes, towed gunnery targets, transported equipment and personnel, and flight-tested airplanes returning from maintenance. The women served at more than 120 bases around the country before the program was suspended in December 1944.
Early efforts to grant military status to WASP members were rebuffed, but in 1977 President Jimmy Carter signed a law granting extending military status to WASP members.
“We are very pleased to present NBAA’s Meritorious Service to Aviation Award to Erin Miller on behalf of all the WASP pilots,” said NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen. “These brave and accomplished women were instrumental to the success of the war effort. The courage and skill of these pilots exemplify the spirit of NBAA's Meritorious Service to Aviation Award.”
NBAA is planning to recognize the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) with the Meritorious Service to Aviation Award, one of the association’s highest honors. To be presented tomorrow during the second-day keynote session (10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the keynote session area on the exhibit floor), the Meritorious Service award honors “lifelong contributions to aviation.”
Erin Miller will accept the award on behalf of the WASP. Miller played an instrumental role in passage of legislation in 2016 that provided inurnment rights for WASP at Arlington National Cemetery. She made that push after her grandmother, Elaine Harmon, a WASP, passed away.
The WASP, formed to support the Army Air Forces during World War II, traces its roots to 1942. With male pilots in short supply and required for the war, the Army was in dire need of pilots to deliver training aircraft to flight schools, NBAA recounted. Twenty-eight women pilots volunteered for the ferrying jobs and established the first female squadron in summer 1942. That served as the genesis of the WASP organization, which encompassed two civilian-flying groups that had formed in the volunteer effort: the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron and the Women's Flying Training Detachment, according to the National WASP WWII Museum.
Ultimately, more than 1,100 WASP pilots flew more than 60 million miles and delivered 12,650 airplanes, including every aircraft in the Army’s arsenal. They ferried airplanes, towed gunnery targets, transported equipment and personnel, and flight-tested airplanes returning from maintenance. The women served at more than 120 bases around the country before the program was suspended in December 1944.
Early efforts to grant military status to WASP members were rebuffed, but in 1977 President Jimmy Carter signed a law granting extending military status to WASP members.
“We are very pleased to present NBAA’s Meritorious Service to Aviation Award to Erin Miller on behalf of all the WASP pilots,” said NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen. “These brave and accomplished women were instrumental to the success of the war effort. The courage and skill of these pilots exemplify the spirit of NBAA's Meritorious Service to Aviation Award.”