{"id":29389152,"date":"2026-10-24T17:49:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T15:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/katherine-stinson-flying-schoolgirl-loop-skywriting-japan-airmail\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T17:49:58","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T15:49:58","slug":"katherine-stinson-flying-schoolgirl-loop-skywriting-japan-airmail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/katherine-stinson-flying-schoolgirl-loop-skywriting-japan-airmail\/","title":{"rendered":"Katherine Stinson: The Flying Schoolgirl Who Looped and Flew Mail"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\r\n\r\n<style>\r\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid 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In the cockpit sat a 27-year-old American woman. In a mailbag beside her were 259 letters, the first mail ever flown in western Canada.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Katherine Stinson had already been a star for five years by then. She was the fourth woman in the United States to earn a pilot&rsquo;s licence, one of the first women anywhere to loop an aeroplane, a pioneer of night flying and skywriting, and the first woman to fly in Japan and China. Huge crowds turned out wherever she flew.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>She flew for barely six years. But in that time the girl the newspapers called the Flying Schoolgirl did as much as anyone to convince the world that flying was not a man&rsquo;s job.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f4f6f9;border:1px solid #e2e7ee;padding:18px 22px;margin:22px 0 26px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:700;color:#0d1117\">Quick Facts<\/p><ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:18px\"><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Name:<\/strong> Katherine Stinson (later Katherine Stinson Otero)<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Born \/ died:<\/strong> 14 February 1891, Fort Payne, Alabama \/ 8 July 1977, Santa Fe, New Mexico<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Licence:<\/strong> 24 July 1912, the fourth American woman to gain an FAI pilot certificate<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Nickname:<\/strong> The Flying Schoolgirl<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Firsts:<\/strong> First woman authorised to carry US mail by air (1913); early night flyer and skywriter; first woman to fly in Japan and China (1916&ndash;17)<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Loop:<\/strong> First loop 18 July 1915, Cicero Field, Chicago; some 500 loops without an accident<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Record flight:<\/strong> 11 December 1917, San Diego to San Francisco non-stop in 9 h 10 min<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Canada:<\/strong> 9 July 1918: first air mail in western Canada, Calgary to Edmonton, 259 letters<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">She sold the piano<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Stinson was born in Fort Payne, Alabama, on 14 February 1891. She was musical, and dreamed of studying piano in Europe. Flying looked like a way to pay for it: exhibition pilots could earn a fortune at county fairs. After a ride in a balloon in 1911, she sold the family piano to fund flying lessons.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Finding a teacher was the hard part. Max Lillie, a Swedish-born instructor in Chicago who flew Wright aeroplanes, at first refused to teach a woman. She talked him round, and in July 1912 she soloed in a Wright Model B after only about four hours of instruction. On 24 July 1912, aged 21, she received her licence from the F&eacute;d&eacute;ration A&eacute;ronautique Internationale, the fourth American woman to do so.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/10\/katherine-stinson-biplane-flying-coat.jpg\" alt=\"Katherine Stinson in a long leather flying coat, helmet and goggles standing beside the propeller of a biplane\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Katherine Stinson in her flying coat and goggles beside a biplane, around 1915&ndash;1920. She learned to fly in 1912 on a Wright Model B. Bain News Service, Library of Congress \/ public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>In April 1913 she and her mother founded the Stinson Aviation Company in Hot Springs, Arkansas. She was small, slight and looked younger than her years. A Kansas City reporter thought she could pass for a high school sophomore, and promoters began billing her as the Flying Schoolgirl.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Loops, flares and a family flying school<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>She toured the fairgrounds of America in her Wright biplane, often dismantling and rebuilding it herself between shows. In September 1913, at the Montana State Fair in Helena, she became the first woman authorised to carry mail by air in the United States.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Then she went after the most famous stunt of the day. Male pilots would not teach a woman to loop the loop, so she watched them and worked it out. On 18 July 1915, at Cicero Field in Chicago, she looped for the first time. She went on to loop some 500 times without an accident.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><div><em>&ldquo;When you fly upside down you don&rsquo;t feel as if you had turned over. Rather, you feel as if the Earth had changed places with the sky and was hanging over you.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Katherine Stinson<\/strong> &mdash; On flying upside down, quoted in Debra Winegarten&rsquo;s biography <em>Katherine Stinson: The Flying Schoolgirl<\/em> (via the US Air Force)<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>She also flew at night, which very few pilots dared to do. Over Los Angeles, with flares fixed to her aircraft, she traced the letters &ldquo;CAL&rdquo; across the dark sky, the first night skywriting on record. Meanwhile the Stinson family opened a flying school in San Antonio, Texas, where her sister Marjorie taught and her brother Eddie worked as a mechanic. Today the field is Stinson Municipal Airport.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0 8px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ya3f_1SHJnI\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;font-style:italic;margin:0 0 24px\">The Henry Ford&rsquo;s <em>Innovation Nation<\/em> on Katherine Stinson, the loop pioneer and first woman to fly US mail.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Air Queen in Asia<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>In December 1916 she shipped her aircraft across the Pacific for a tour of Japan and China that ran into the middle of 1917. No woman had ever flown in Asia before. In Yokohama, according to one biography, more than 25,000 people watched her skywrite with fireworks, and Japanese women formed fan clubs in her honour. The Japanese press called her the Air Queen.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/10\/katherine-stinson-tokyo-crowd-japan-tour.jpg\" alt=\"Katherine Stinson smiling and making a V sign in the middle of a large crowd of men in Tokyo\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Mobbed by a crowd in Tokyo during her tour of Japan, which began in December 1916. She was the first woman to fly in Asia. Bain News Service, Library of Congress \/ public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Her timing overlapped with another American stunt flyer touring Japan, Art Smith, and the two met in Osaka. She returned home a celebrity on two continents, and with an award for her flying in China.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/10\/katherine-stinson-art-smith-osaka-1917.jpg\" alt=\"Katherine Stinson in a fur-collared coat shaking hands with American aviator Art Smith in Osaka, Japan\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Stinson shakes hands with fellow American stunt pilot Art Smith in Osaka, as published in a Japanese photo magazine in June 1917. Rekishi Shashin \/ public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Turned away by the army<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>When the United States entered the First World War in April 1917, Stinson volunteered to fly for the military. So did her fellow exhibition flyer Ruth Law. Both were turned down because they were women. Instead, Stinson flew for the American Red Cross. On a flying tour from Buffalo to Washington in June 1917, she helped raise some $2 million in pledges.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>On 11 December 1917 she took off from North Island, San Diego, in a one-off Curtiss-Stinson Special and flew non-stop to the Presidio of San Francisco in 9 hours and 10 minutes, crossing the Tehachapi Mountains at about 8,000 feet. <em>Flying<\/em> magazine noted that the distance record still belonged to Ruth Law, but called the flight a new record for cross-country duration.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #d32f2f;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><div><em>&ldquo;I was very happy; I had done something that men held worthwhile. But happy as I was, I was also very tired and very hungry&mdash;and my lips were cracked by the cold headwinds that I battled all the way up from San Diego.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Katherine Stinson<\/strong> &mdash; To a reporter on landing at the Presidio, San Francisco, December 1917 (via SFO Museum)<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Weeks later, at Tanforan race track near San Francisco, she looped, flew upside down and was presented with a medal for the flight.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/10\/katherine-stinson-medal-tanforan-1917.jpg\" alt=\"Katherine Stinson in flying helmet and goggles smiling and pointing to a star-shaped medal on her coat at Tanforan race track\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Stinson shows off the medal she received at Tanforan race track, San Bruno, in December 1917 for her non-stop flight from San Diego to San Francisco. Hamilton Henry Dobbin, California State Library \/ public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0 8px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Mn9bNoT-UHk\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;font-style:italic;margin:0 0 24px\">Silent 1917 newsreel from the Prelinger Archives: Stinson in San Francisco after her non-stop flight from San Diego, with her aircraft.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Mail across two countries<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Civilian flying was largely shut down during the war, but the new US air mail service still needed pilots. In 1918 Stinson flew a special mail run from Chicago towards New York, fighting headwinds all the way. She made it non-stop to Binghamton, New York, before she had to land for fuel, flipped the aircraft over in a field, and finished the trip after repairs. For a brief spell she flew the New York to Philadelphia route as the US Post Office&rsquo;s first woman mail pilot.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>That summer she toured the Canadian prairies. On 9 July 1918, during the Calgary Industrial Exhibition, she took the Calgary postmaster&rsquo;s bag of 259 letters, made a forced landing on a farm just after take-off, had the aircraft fixed, went back to Calgary to start again, and then flew non-stop to Edmonton, arriving just after 8 p.m. to a cheering crowd.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><div><em>&ldquo;Flying at a great height Miss Stinson gracefully circled the grounds, coming down by easy stages until in a favorable position to land against the wind.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Edmonton Journal<\/strong> &mdash; Report on Stinson&rsquo;s arrival with the first western Canadian air mail, July 1918 (via Vintage Wings of Canada)<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Ambulances, illness and adobe<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Still determined to serve, she went to France as a volunteer ambulance driver for the Red Cross. There, in November 1918, she caught influenza, which turned into tuberculosis. She spent years recovering in sanatoriums, finally in the dry air of Santa Fe, New Mexico. She never flew as a pilot again.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>In Santa Fe she built a second career, as a self-taught architect designing houses in the Pueblo Revival style; one client was Dorothy McKibbin, the &ldquo;gatekeeper&rdquo; of the Los Alamos atomic bomb project. She married Miguel Antonio Otero Jr., a former army aviator who became a judge. Her brothers Eddie and Jack stayed in aviation, and her flying inspired the Stinson Aircraft Company.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0 8px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7CYjxe4162o\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;font-style:italic;margin:0 0 24px\">The National Aviation Hall of Fame&rsquo;s tribute to Katherine Stinson on her enshrinement in 2019.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Katherine Stinson Otero died in Santa Fe on 8 July 1977, at 86. A replica of her Curtiss-Stinson Special now greets visitors at the Alberta Aviation Museum in Edmonton, and in 2019 she was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame. A century on, the Flying Schoolgirl who taught herself to loop is finally getting the recognition the army once refused her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em>Sources: Wikipedia (Katherine Stinson), Encyclopedia of Alabama, CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas, This Day in Aviation, SFO Museum, US Air Force (af.mil), Vintage Wings of Canada, WestJet, Women in Texas History, New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative<\/em><\/p>\r\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\r\n\r\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\r\n\r\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\r\n\r\n\r\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\r\n\r\n\r\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>Who was Katherine Stinson?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Katherine Stinson (1891&ndash;1977) was an American exhibition pilot known as the Flying Schoolgirl. In 1912 she became the fourth woman in the US to earn a pilot licence. She was a loop and night-skywriting pioneer, the first woman to fly in Japan and China, and an early airmail pilot in the US and Canada.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>When did Katherine Stinson first loop the loop?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Katherine Stinson first looped on 18 July 1915 at Cicero Field in Chicago, after male pilots refused to teach her and she worked the manoeuvre out by watching them. She went on to perform the loop some 500 times without an accident, and it became the signature of her exhibition shows.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Was Katherine Stinson the first woman to fly in Japan and China?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Yes. Katherine Stinson toured Japan and China from December 1916 into mid-1917 and was the first woman to fly in Asia. Large crowds watched her flights and fireworks skywriting, Japanese women formed fan clubs, and the press called her the Air Queen.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Which airmail flight did Katherine Stinson make in Canada?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">On 9 July 1918, Katherine Stinson flew 259 letters from Calgary to Edmonton in her Curtiss-Stinson Special, the first air mail delivery in western Canada. After a forced landing on her first attempt, she restarted from Calgary and flew non-stop to Edmonton, arriving just after 8 p.m.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why did Katherine Stinson stop flying?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Katherine Stinson was refused by the military in the First World War and went to France as a Red Cross ambulance driver. In November 1918 she caught influenza, which developed into tuberculosis. After years of recovery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, she never flew as a pilot again and became an architect instead.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What record did Katherine Stinson set in 1917?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">On 11 December 1917, Katherine Stinson flew non-stop from San Diego to San Francisco in 9 hours and 10 minutes, crossing the Tehachapi Mountains at about 8,000 feet. Flying magazine recorded it as a new cross-country duration record, while Ruth Law still held the American distance record.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who was Katherine Stinson?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Katherine Stinson (1891\u20131977) was an American exhibition pilot known as the Flying Schoolgirl. In 1912 she became the fourth woman in the US to earn a pilot licence. She was a loop and night-skywriting pioneer, the first woman to fly in Japan and China, and an early airmail pilot in the US and Canada.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"When did Katherine Stinson first loop the loop?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Katherine Stinson first looped on 18 July 1915 at Cicero Field in Chicago, after male pilots refused to teach her and she worked the manoeuvre out by watching them. She went on to perform the loop some 500 times without an accident, and it became the signature of her exhibition shows.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Was Katherine Stinson the first woman to fly in Japan and China?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Yes. Katherine Stinson toured Japan and China from December 1916 into mid-1917 and was the first woman to fly in Asia. 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Flying magazine recorded it as a new cross-country duration record, while Ruth Law still held the American distance record.\"}}]}<\/script><div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\"><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\/harriet-quimby-americas-first-licensed-female-pilot-crossed-the-channel-then-died-at-an-airshow\/\">Harriet Quimby: America&rsquo;s First Licensed Female Pilot Crossed the Channel &mdash; Then Died at an Airshow<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/raymonde-de-laroche-first-licensed-woman-pilot-1910\/\">Raymonde de Laroche: The World&rsquo;s First Licensed Woman Pilot<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/bessie-coleman-america-refused-her-a-flying-lesson-so-she-learned-in-france\/\">Bessie Coleman: America Refused Her a 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