The Washington Air College at Mueller-Harkins Airport. Boland # A10414

Airports--Lakewood--1930-1940; Mueller-Harkins Airport (Lakewood); Washington Air College (Lakewood)

Three young women, believed to be (l to r) Jane Grondahl and Evelynne Detty sitting in the twin cockpits of a biplane and Joyce Sorenson leaning against the plane's fuselage, chat with an unidentified flight instructor at Mueller-Harkin airfield in July of 1940. The three were the only women among the fifty College of Puget Sound summer school students who signed up to study commercial aviation that summer under a program sponsored by the Federal Civil Aeronautics Authority.The course of study was primarily ground instruction with classes on the history of aviation, the theory of flight, civil air regulations, air navigation and the uses of radio in flying. The Civil Aeronautics Authority hoped to train 45,000 commercial aviators in 1940 from which the ranks of army and navy fliers could be recruited. (T.Times 7/10/1940 p.1,18)

Air pilots; World War, 1939-1945--Women--Tacoma; Flight training--Tacoma--1940-1950; Biplanes; Mueller-Harkins Airport (Lakewood); Grondahl, Jane; Detty; Evelynne; Sorenson, Joyce; College of Puget Sound (Tacoma)--Students;