Aida de Acosta was the first woman to fly solo in a controllable powered flying machine.
Three months before the Wright Brothers first flight Aida soloed in a dirigible airship.
Aida was an American Socialite who first saw in 1903 when she was on a visit to Paris with her mother. After three flying lessons she went solo. Aida somehow persuaded Alberto Santos-Dumont, a pioneer in dirigible airships, to teach her in his airship 'No 9' and let her fly it solo.
Alberto Santos-Dumont was famous for being the first person to prove that controlled powered flight was achievable when he won the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize on October 19, 1901 by flying around the Eiffel Tower, He was also the first person to take off unaided in a heavier than air aircraft, and some claim this is the first true heavier than air flight because the Wright Brothers where still using catapults.
The story goes that when Aida de Acosta went solo in 'No9' Santos-Dumont rode his bicycle below her shouting instruction. She flew to a polo match between British and American teams, After watching some polo Aida got back into No 9 and flew back to Neuilly st James, where the flight had started.
Aida de Acosta flying N0 9 in 1903
Aida's parents where outraged when they found out and hushed up the flight because they where convinced no man would marry a woman who had done such a thing. Thus ended Aida de Acosta's flying career.
In 1922 Aida was afflicted with glaucoma. Her ophthalmologist was famed eye specialist William H. Wilmer, whom Time magazine called "the greatest eye surgeon the U.S. has ever had." She eventually lost
sight in one eye, but Dr. Wilmer’s care saved her other eye, and inspired her to organize a fund-raising campaign that resulted in $3 million to fund the establishment in 1925 of the Wilmer Eye Institute in Johns Hopkins Hospital, the first eye institute in the U.S. In 1945 she founded and became Executive Director of the Eye-Bank for Sight Restoration in New York, the first eye bank in the U.S.There where the usual rumours about a romance between Santos de-Dumont and Aida de Acosta but it seems that they never met again after Aida's flight in 1903.
Santos de-Dumont flying around the Eiffel Tower