Chennai: Sarla Thakral is believed to be the country’s first woman pilot, having flown an aircraft in 1936. However a peep into the The Hindu’s archives reveals that women staked their claim to being the first to navigate the skies of Madras at least a year earlier.
It was on the 30 of May 1935 that two women — nineteen-year-old Kummudammal and sixteen-year-old Angulia Bai — made aviation history in the city. Determined to learn how to pilot an aircraft, the young women joined the Madras Flying Club to obtain the ‘A’ pilot license. After weeks of training under instructor E.N.V. Everett, the cockpit so far occupied by men, was going to have women in command.
In 1955, it was the turn of an 18-year-old literature student of Presidency College, Usha Ramachandran (now Usha Ragunathan), to carry the legacy forward. She was the only woman to be awarded a scholarship by the Madras Government to train to fly. For Usha, who grew up near the airport as her father M.S Ramachandran was a senior technical officer in the aviation sector, taking to aeroplanes was almost a given. “I used to spend most of my free time walking or cycling on the runway. I was fascinated by planes, and I couldn’t help wanting to fly them. ”
20/12/14 Nitya Menon/The Hindu
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It was on the 30 of May 1935 that two women — nineteen-year-old Kummudammal and sixteen-year-old Angulia Bai — made aviation history in the city. Determined to learn how to pilot an aircraft, the young women joined the Madras Flying Club to obtain the ‘A’ pilot license. After weeks of training under instructor E.N.V. Everett, the cockpit so far occupied by men, was going to have women in command.
In 1955, it was the turn of an 18-year-old literature student of Presidency College, Usha Ramachandran (now Usha Ragunathan), to carry the legacy forward. She was the only woman to be awarded a scholarship by the Madras Government to train to fly. For Usha, who grew up near the airport as her father M.S Ramachandran was a senior technical officer in the aviation sector, taking to aeroplanes was almost a given. “I used to spend most of my free time walking or cycling on the runway. I was fascinated by planes, and I couldn’t help wanting to fly them. ”
20/12/14 Nitya Menon/The Hindu
