Fay Gillis Wells

Fay Gillis Wells (October 15, 1908 – December 2, 2002) was an American pioneer aviator, globe-trotting journalist and a broadcaster.

In 1929 she was the first woman pilot to bail out of an airplane to save her life and helped found the Ninety-Nines, the international organization of licensed women pilots. As a journalist she corresponded from the Soviet Union in the 1930s, covered wars and pioneered overseas radio broadcasting with her husband, the reporter Linton Wells, and was a White House correspondent from 1963 to 1977. During the 1930s and 40s she and her husband carried out sensitive government missions in Africa. For many years she actively promoted world friendship through flying.

Born in Minneapolis, she grew up in various towns in the US and Canada following her father, Julius H. Gillis, a mining engineer. She graduated from Battin High School in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1925, and studied at Michigan State University, but left before graduation to pursue other interests.

In August 1929 she began flying. On September 1st, 1929 she became the first woman pilot to be a member of the Caterpillar Club (bailing out of an airplane to save her life) when her plane disintegrated during aerobatics over Long Island. She soon became the first air saleswoman and demonstrator hired by the Curtiss Flying Service. Later that year she helped found the “Ninety Nines,” and served as its first secretary, with Amelia Earhart as the first president. At the time of her death she was one of four charter members remaining active.

From 1930-34, while in the Soviet Union with her father, she traveled as a correspondent covering aviation activities for the New York Herald Tribune, and as a special reporter for the New York Times and Associated Press. While there she was the first American woman to fly a Soviet civil airplane and the first foreigner to own a Soviet glider. She also handled the logistics in Russia for famed aviator Wiley Post's solo round-the-world flight in 1933, and was the New York Times’ correspondent at the coronation of Emperor Pu Yi of Manchukuo in 1934.

...
Wikipedia