etty was a three-time Feminine
International Aerobatic Champion (1948-
1950) who established numerous speed
records in the sky and on land. Her trademark
airplane was her custom-built Pitts Special
Little Stinker, which now hangs from the ceiling of
the Smithsonian Institution.
Among her talents were inverted ribbon cuttings,
and many may remember her close call in the late
1940s whenw she attempted to slice a ribbon with her
prop instead of a wing and came in dangerously low
only to see her Pitts engine die. Somehow she managed
to right the Pitts in order to make a dead-stick landing.
In 1949, Betty set a speed record of 421 mph (
unofficially breaking Jacqueline Cochran’s record) in a
P- 51 Mustang before the engine exploded in flight and
she was forced into another dead-stick landing. She
also flew a Piper Cub to record heights, reaching
29,050 feet in 1951.
In addition, Betty was the first woman to undergo
the same physical tests as the original seven Mercury
astronauts as part of a February 1960 article for Look
magazine, which put her in the conversation as to
whether she should be the first American in space.
She was the first woman to drive a jump boat, to drive
a Gold Cup racing boat, and she flew jets, helicopters,
blimps, and gliders. She was a test pilot and flight
instructor and was the first female vice president of
a major ad agency.
42 Sport Aviation June 2012
“My folks, I think,
had always wanted
a boy.” –Betty Skelton
Mastering the Air
Betty was born in Pensacola on June 28, 1926, as the only child of
Myrtle and David L. Skelton of Winter Haven, Florida. When asked
by Chris Poole in a 1995 Collectible Automobile article how much
her parents influenced her, Betty responded, “My folks, I think,
had always wanted a boy. My dad kind of led me more toward mas-
culine things. He took me to boxing matches every Tuesday night
and taught me how to box a little—so the girl down the street
wouldn’t pick on me. And my mother went right along with most
anything I wanted to do.”
Airplanes had always been Betty’s first love as a child; she
played with model airplanes instead of dolls. She took flying les-
sons at an early age along with her parents on Old Corry Field in
Pensacola and flew solo at the age of 12 when a gutsy young Navy
ensign let her go up in a 40-hp Taylorcraft when no one was
around. At 16, she earned her pilot certificate.
During the war years Betty’s family moved to Tampa. She was 16
when she landed a job at Eastern Air Lines, doing a variety of ground
activities at the Tampa airport, but she
never lost her desire to fly. So she convinced a local celebrity, 1930s flying ace
Clem Whittenbeck, to teach her aerobatics. Two weeks later, she performed
publicly for the first time at a local air
show. She wowed the crowd, and a visiting
air show owner offered her $25 to fly in his
next show. Suddenly, the die was cast.
By the age of 22, many newspapers
referred to Betty as “ 95 pounds of feminine
dynamite.” She flew a Fairchild PT- 19 before
acquiring a 1929 Great Lakes 2T-1A sports
trainer biplane. But she is most famous for her accomplishments in
her Pitts Special Little Stinker.
She went on to develop a close friendship with air racing king
Steve Wittman, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, having the audacity to
knock on his door while he was hosting a cocktail party during
the 1948 Cleveland Air Races. As he stepped out into the hall to
speak with her, she boldly asked him if she could race his world-famous homebuilt airplane named Buster. She never got to race it,
