History of aviation – October 22, 1909. On this October 22, 1909, it is the actress Elise Deroche who is at the heart of aeronautical news, the latter, of French nationality, carrying out a historic flight on this day: for the first time, a woman will find herself alone at the controls of an airplane, with not a single person beside her in the aircraft. A solo flight that will be covered in the daily press. Indeed, there were not many female aviators in the early days of aerial locomotion…
And yet, there are some of them who show temerity by trying aviation, Elise Deroche is one of them and very early on, she had the desire to fly, learning to handle airplanes like her male counterparts . Charles Voisin having encouraged her in this direction. Moreover, for his first solo flight in a single-seater airplane on October 22, 1909, he followed her with his gaze on the ground, a journalist also witnessing his performance. Taking off from Bouy aerodrome, Elise Deroche will cover a distance of 300 meters in an airplane.
Trained on a Voisin biplane at the Châlons-en-Champagne aviation camp, the aviator soon wanted to try her pilot’s license, passing it successfully in Mourmelon on March 8, 1910.
