Dorothy Eleanor Olsen WASP (née Kocher; July 10, 1916 – July 23, 2019)
Came across this bio of WASP Dorothy Olsen on Wikipedia today and had to post her comments on the WW2 aircraft she flew. What a gal!
An American aircraft pilot and member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II. She grew up on her family's farm in Woodburn, Oregon, developing an interest in aviation at a young age. She earned her private pilot's license in 1939, when it was unusual for women to be pilots.
In 1943, Olsen joined the newly formed WASPs as a civil service employee. After training in Texas, she was assigned to the Sixth Ferrying Group in Long Beach, California, where she worked ferrying new aircraft from the factories where they were built to U.S. airbases. She flew more than 20 types of military airplanes, including high-performance fighters such as the P-51 Mustang and the twin-engine P-38 Lightning, which she favored over larger aircraft such as bombers; she was particularly fond of the P-51.
According to Olsen, she flew more than 20 different models of military aircraft, both Army and Navy types.[2][17] Her favorite was the P-51.[3] Debbie Jennings, a historian with the Seattle Museum of Flight,[18] said Olsen disliked flying bombers because in the single-seat fighters, "she was by herself and could do whatever she wanted". Jennings mentioned that Olsen enjoyed scaring farmers on their tractors by flying close to them and "would do the same at railroad stations just because".[3] For these actions, she was reprimanded by her superiors. According to her son, "She felt bombers were like driving buses".[17] Her daughter noted that Olsen felt the P-38 was "an old woman's plane", which "anybody could fly", but a pilot had to "stay on top of" the P-51.[3]
