Sun, Aug 03, 2003

Another Milestone In Flight This Weekend

Does The Name Ingrid Pedersen Ring A Bell?

Forty years ago this weekend, Ingrid Pedersen left Fairbanks on a flight that would forever etch her name into aviation history books.

Landing a red and white Cessna 21 hours later at Nord Station, Greenland, Pedersen became the first woman to pilot a small airplane over the North Pole.

She was joined by her husband, Einar, who navigated the flight and snapped photos from the plane window for his research on ice conditions.

The Pedersens' polar expedition earned newspaper headlines worldwide but never became as well-known as other first flights, according to aviation historians in Anchorage.

Anchorage pilot Tom Wardleigh recalls the excitement it generated in Alaska at the time.

Men had flown over the pole before, he said, but the long, dangerous flight had never been done by a woman, particularly not a woman flying a small plane. It was an adventuresome sort of thing, and everyone was interested," he said. "'Gee whiz, here was a woman flying around the North Pole.'"

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Another Milestone In Flight This Weekend

Does The Name Ingrid Pedersen Ring A Bell?

FMI: www.adn.com/life/story/3544675p-3575691c.html

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