{"id":17421639,"date":"2026-08-28T10:23:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T08:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/?p=17421639"},"modified":"2026-08-28T10:27:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T08:27:17","slug":"betty-skelton-little-stinker-aerobatics-land-speed-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/betty-skelton-little-stinker-aerobatics-land-speed-records\/","title":{"rendered":"Betty Skelton: Aerobatic Champion, Then Land Speed Record Holder"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n\r\n<p>The trick she was best known for went like this: fly a biplane upside down, ten feet off the grass, and cut a ribbon strung between two poles with the propeller. The poles were held by Steve Wittman and Bill Brennan. On the first attempt the engine quit. On another she flew under the ribbon instead.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Betty Skelton was 22. She had already been flying for a decade, because she first soloed at twelve \u2014 which was thoroughly illegal, and which is why nobody wrote it down.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px 22px;margin:24px 0;border-radius:8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:15px;letter-spacing:.04em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333\">Quick Facts<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Full name:<\/strong> Betty Skelton (later Frankman, later Erde), 1926&ndash;2011, born Pensacola, Florida<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>First solo:<\/strong> Age 12, in a 40 hp Taylorcraft &mdash; unofficial and unlogged<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Licences:<\/strong> Private at 16, commercial at 18, flight instructor at 19<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Aerobatic titles:<\/strong> International Feminine Aerobatic Champion 1948, 1949 and 1950<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>The aeroplane:<\/strong> Pitts Special S-1C, the second Pitts ever built &mdash; registered NX86401, later N22E, named <em>Little Stinker<\/em><\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Altitude records:<\/strong> 25,763 ft in 1949 and 29,050 ft in 1951, in a Piper Cub<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>On land:<\/strong> Women&rsquo;s land speed record at Bonneville in 1965, around 277 mph average, in Art Arfons&rsquo; jet car<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Records total:<\/strong> 17 combined aviation and automotive records<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Little Stinker<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Skelton won her first championship in 1948 flying a Great Lakes biplane. In August that year she paid $3,000 for the second Pitts Special ever built \u2014 a tiny, savagely quick single-seater with a wingspan not much wider than a car is long. She won the next two championships in it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Its original registration, NX86401, was too long to fit the airframe neatly, so in 1949 she had it reissued as N22E. It wears that today. She gave it to the Smithsonian in 1985; after a restoration running from 1996 to 2001 it went on display in 2003, and it hangs inverted, which is the correct way to display an aeroplane whose owner spent most of her career that way up.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img data-opt-id=1361880121  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:btEX.cfcd\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/08\/little-stinker-n22e-udvar-hazy-alternative-angle-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Betty Skelton\u2019s Pitts Special N22E at the Udvar-Hazy Center\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\"><em>Little Stinker<\/em> as it hangs today at the Smithsonian&rsquo;s Udvar-Hazy Center &mdash; the second Pitts Special built, and the oldest surviving. Photo: F18shack \/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;I probably shouldn&rsquo;t tell you, but I soloed when I was twelve, and it wasn&rsquo;t quite legal then, so I couldn&rsquo;t tell anybody.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Betty Skelton Frankman<\/strong> &mdash; NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project, 19 July 1999<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Then she got out of the aeroplane and into a car<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Aerobatic competition in the early 1950s paid nothing. In February 1954 Skelton drove the pace car at Daytona Speed Week, then took a Dodge out on the sand and set a women's stock car record at 105.88 mph. She became the first woman to hold an AAA competition licence and the first female test driver in the American car industry.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>From 1956 she worked for Chevrolet through the agency Campbell-Ewald, became the marque's public face, and was the founding editor of <em>Corvette News<\/em>. The National Corvette Museum credits her with 145.044 mph over the Daytona measured mile in a Corvette that year.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>The big one came in 1965 at Bonneville, in Art Arfons' jet-powered \"Green Monster \u2014 Cyclops\": a women's land speed record of roughly 277 mph average, with a one-way run reported at about 316 mph.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7gAIx_k2Gx0\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:14px;color:#666;font-style:italic;margin-top:-8px\">Florida Memory&rsquo;s archive film of Betty Skelton Day, 11 July 1948 &mdash; the year of her first championship.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The astronaut story, straightened out<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>In 1959 <em>Look<\/em> magazine commissioned something unusual: it arranged for Skelton to take a number of the same physical and psychological tests being given to the Mercury astronauts, over roughly four or five months, at facilities including the School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks. She appeared on the cover of the 2 February 1960 issue, labelled \"7\u00bd\" \u2014 the nickname the Mercury Seven had given her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>What this was not: astronaut selection. Mercury required military test-pilot qualification and 1,500 hours of jet time, neither of which any American woman could legally accumulate at the time. Skelton knew it perfectly well and said so. The frequently repeated versions online \u2014 that she \"completed Mercury training\", or was \"the eighth astronaut\" \u2014 are not supported by anything.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img data-opt-id=1410975561  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:btEX.cfcd\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/08\/betty-skelton-portrait-winter-haven-c1950.jpg\" alt=\"Betty Skelton around 1950\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Skelton at Winter Haven, Florida, around 1950, between her second and third aerobatic championships. Photo: State Library and Archives of Florida, public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;I think the thing I enjoyed most, and yet was probably one of the most dangerous, was flying upside down about ten feet above the ground, cutting a ribbon with the prop of the airplane. If nothing else gives you a thrill, that will, I&rsquo;ll tell you.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Betty Skelton Frankman<\/strong> &mdash; on the inverted ribbon cut, NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project, 19 July 1999<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"max-width:550px;margin:0 auto 28px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?id=2045554725861396811&theme=light\" style=\"width:100%;height:400px;border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Seventeen records<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>The figure that keeps coming back, across the National Aviation Hall of Fame, the Motorsports Hall of Fame and her obituaries, is 17 \u2014 combined air and land records, more than any other individual has held across both. Popular retellings inflate it to \"dozens\"; 17 is the number anyone can actually source.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>She was inducted into the International Aerobatic Club hall of fame in 1988, Women in Aviation's in 1997, the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2005 and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2008 \u2014 and was the first woman in the NASCAR International Automotive Hall of Fame, in 1983.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_R3TjDyhsm4\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:14px;color:#666;font-style:italic;margin-top:-8px\">The National Aviation Hall of Fame&rsquo;s biography film.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Betty Skelton died on 31 August 2011, aged 85. Her aeroplane is still upside down in Virginia, which she would have approved of.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><em>Sources: NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project transcript, 19 July 1999; National Air and Space Museum object record A19850806000; National Aviation Hall of Fame; Motorsports Hall of Fame of America; National Corvette Museum; <\/em>The New York Times<em> obituary, 10 September 2011; <\/em>Flying<em>; Wikipedia cross-checks.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/jerrie-mock-first-woman-solo-around-the-world-1964\/\">Jerrie Mock: The First Woman to Fly Solo Around the World<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/beryl-markham-first-woman-atlantic-east-west-1936\/\">Beryl Markham: The Woman Who Flew the Atlantic the Hard Way<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/jean-batten-solo-record-flights-new-zealand\/\">Jean Batten: The Girl Who Beat All the Men<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>She soloed at twelve, won three aerobatic championships cutting ribbons upside down, then set a land speed record in a jet car. Seventeen records across air and land.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":17421214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17421639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-history-and-legends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Betty Skelton: Aerobatics and Land Speed Records | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Betty Skelton soloed at twelve, won three aerobatic championships and later set a land speed record in a jet car. 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