Raymonde de Laroche
Raymonde de Laroche (22 August 1886 - 18 July 1919), born Elise Raymonde Deroche, was a French aviatrix and the first woman to receive a pilot's licence.
Born 22 August 1886, Elise Raymonde Deroche was the daughter of a plumber.
As a young woman she became an actress and used the stage name "Raymonde de Laroche". Flight magazine erroneously added the title of "Baroness" in reporting her first flight, and it stuck. She had a son, André, whose father was reportedly the artist-turned aviator Leon Delagrange.
De Laroche was already an experienced balloonist when, in October 1909, aviator Charles Voisin (1882-1912) suggested she could learn to fly a fixed-wing aircraft.
On 22 October 1909 de Laroche flew 300 yards (270 m) at Chalons, 90 miles (140 km) east of Paris, where the Voisin brothers based their operations. De Laroche's flight is often cited as the first by a woman in a powered heavier-than-air craft. However there is evidence to suggest that Therese Peltier had flown the previous year.
Decades later, aviation journalist Harry Harper wrote that until de Laroche made her celebrated flight on the Voisin she had never flown except once, for a short hop, as a passenger; that when she first took the controls Charles Voisin expressly forbade her to attempt a flight; and that after taxiing twice across the airfield she took off, flying "ten or fifteen feet high" and handling the controls with "cool, quick precision".
Although Gabriel Voisin wrote ". . . my brother [was] entirely under her thumb", the story of de Laroche as a headstrong woman making the flight after scant preparation and against Charles Voisin's orders almost certainly romanticizes what actually took place.
Flight magazine, a week after the flight, reported: ”For some time the Baroness has been taking lessons from M. Chateau, the Voisin instructor, at Chalons, and on Friday of last week she was able to take the wheel for the first time. This initial voyage into the air was only a very short one, and terra firma was regained after 300 yards (270 m).”
Biographer Eileen Lebow concurs: “At the Voisin camp at Chalons, M. Chateau, a company engineer responsible for training new pilots, took Laroche in charge, supervised by Charles Voisin, who was already captivated by her charms . . . Her first attempts showed aptitude: She could drive the machine across the field in a straight line, have it turned by a mechanic, and bring it back to where she started. From that beginning, she progressed to making short hops. On her first try, she revved up the fifty-horsepower motor and taxied across the field, turned into the wind, and with full power raced back across the field. Suddenly her wheels left the ground, and she continued in the air for three hundred meters before gently settling down. There were loud cheers from the ground crew, and M. Chateau nodded approvingly to his pupil . . .”
Flight added that on the following day she circled the flying field twice, "the turnings being made with consummate ease. During this flight of about four miles (6 km) there was a strong gusty wind blowing, but after the first two turnings the Baroness said that it did not bother her, as she had the machine completely under control."
On 8 March 1910 de Laroche became the first woman in the world to receive a pilot's licence when the Aero Club de France issued her license #36 of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (International Aeronautics Federation or F.A.I.).
De Laroche participated in aviation meetings at Heliopolis in Egypt as well as Saint Petersburg, Budapest and Rouen.
In July 1910 de Laroche was participating in the week long airshow at Reims in France. On 8 July her aeroplane crashed and she suffered such severe injuries that her recovery was in doubt but two years later she was fit again and had returned to flying. On 26 September 1912 she was injured in the automobile accident in which Charles Voisin was killed.
On 25 November 1913 de Laroche won the Aero-Club of France's Femina Cup for a non-stop long-distance flight of over 4 hours duration.
During World War I, as flying was considered too dangerous for women, she served as a military driver, chauffeuring officers from the rear zones to the front under fire.
In June 1919 de Laroche set two women's altitude records, one at 15,700 feet (4,800 m); and also the women's distance record, at 201 miles (323 km).
On 18 July 1919 de Laroche, who was a talented engineer, went to the airfield at Le Crotoy as part of her plan to become the first professional woman test pilot. She co-piloted an experimental aircraft (whether she flew this plane or was simply a passenger at the time is not known) but on its landing approach the aeroplane went into a dive and crashed killing both the pilot and de Laroche.
There is a statue of de Laroche at Le Bourget Airport in France.