Jessie E. Woods

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Jessie E. Woods (January 27, 1909-March 18, 2001), also known as Jessie Woods, was one of the first women air pilots in the United States.

Woods was a native of Wichita, Kansas, where she garnered a love for aviation since she was a child. In Wichita, she would see aircraft come and go very often every day, as they were manufactured nearby.

At the age of nineteen, in 1928, Jessie Woods left home with her boyfriend, Jimmie Woods, and they married on August 28 of that year, at a ceremony performed in Wichita. The Woods then went on to form the Flying Aces Air Circus, which lasted until 1938, setting a record for the longest-lasting air circus of all time. The Woods and other pilots performing with them flew every weekend at different places.

Woods was a daredevil. She was also the "circus lady". She would fly aircraft on the circus show, often performing dangerous landings. She walked on a flying aircraft's wing, she would parachute off aircraft, or dangle below them, with her knees holding her to a rope ladder.

Woods served in World War II, with the Civil Air Patrol. Upon returning from the war, she became an aircraft mechanic and a piloting teacher. In 1941, she and her husband Jimmie leased a field in South Carolina, with the American government granting the couple licenses to train military pilots on that field not long after.

After Jimmie Woods, who became a legend himself because of the connection with the "Flying Aces" circus, died in 1956, Jessie Woods continued flying all over her home country. She gained a commercial aviation license, but she never made use of it, sticking with general aviation. She was admired by many during the era when feminist ideas were gaining prominence among American women, and, in 1967, she was named the state of Washington's pilot of the year.

Long retired from her years as an aviatior, in 1994, Miss Woods was inducted into the National Women's Aviation Hall of Fame, where she is alongside Amelia Earhart and Patty Wagstaff, among others.

She died at the age of 92, in her home state of Kansas.