Raiche, Bessica (c. 1874–1932)

First American woman to fly solo. Born around 1874 in Beloit, Wisconsin; died in Balboa, California, on April 10, 1932; married.

Bessica Raiche became the first American woman to fly solo in September 1910, in an airplane she and her husband had made out of wire, silk, and bamboo. (Blanche Scott had briefly flown solo earlier that month, but she had not been intending to do so, and the flight was judged "accidental" by the Aero Club of America.) Born around 1874 in Beloit, Wisconsin, Raiche was living on Long Island in New York at the time of her first solo flight. After her skirt became tangled in the controls of the plane during her fifth flight, she began wearing riding breeches while flying, further enhancing the reputation for eccentricity she had gained as a result of flying, shooting, and wearing bloomers. Raiche went on to make as many as 25 flights in a single week, and with her husband formed the French-American Aeroplane Company, using piano wire to construct the lightest possible planes. She was awarded a gold medal, inscribed to "the first woman aviator of America," from the Aeronautical Society. After her health forced her to retire from flying, Raiche and her husband moved to California. She became a physician and pursued interests in painting, languages, and music before her death on April 10, 1932.

sources:

Read, Phyllis J., and Bernard L. Witlieb. The Book of Women's Firsts. NY: Random House, 1992.

Jo Anne Meginnes , freelance writer, Brookfield, Vermont