Death of a Lady Pilot
Death of a Lady Pilot (working title) is the third conceived book in the Eden Pond Series.
Overview
In the summer of 1943, Eden Pond returns home for the opening of the Tillamook Naval Air Station—a base for planes and blimps tasked with protecting the west coast from Japanese submarine attacks. Joining Eden is longtime family friend Tillie Larkin, a flight instructor for the War Training Service.
After the opening ceremony, Tillie lobbies the station commander for a place in the squadron, but he laughs her off. Only after she insists on a chance to prove herself does he relent an agree to a demonstration flight. A longtime crop duster and barnstormer, Tillie intends to show the male Navy pilots some biplane stunts proving she’s just as capable as, if not better than, they are. But as her aircraft clears the runway and climbs, her engine stalls and she crashes, dying on impact.
The Navy quickly writes the crash off as pilot error, but Eden knew her friend was too experienced to make a careless mistake. She suspects something more sinister, perhaps even sabotage by military men who resent woman pilots. With only the reluctant support of her reticent older brother, she sets out to learn the truth about Tillie’s untimely end.
Chronology
The events of the novel take place in August 1943. Death of a Lady Pilot follows Murder at the Shipyard and precedes Hanford Intrigue.
Historical Note
The U.S. Navy built a series of air stations on the West Coast from which observation blimps and aircraft ran surveillance missions throughout the war. During this time, many women served as pilots but were limited to flying planes from factories to mainland air bases, or in some cases serving as flight instructors.
Male pilots at the time were notoriously dismissive of women flyers, even openly antagonistic. A number of flight accidents involving the deaths of women pilots were determined to be pilot error, but there is reason to suggest the Navy and U.S. Army Air Corps intentionally covered up sabotage by hostile male pilots in at least a few cases.