Women Airforce Service Pilots: A Conversation with Bee Haydu (ICON Series)

“I think the fact that she along with the other women had the foresight to put together a group of women that would let the world know that women fly and let them know what women can do. I think she’ll go down in history forever for having done that.”

I can’t stress this enough. Bee Haydu is a legend. Over ten years ago when doing pre-research for what would become Chasing Earhart, Bee’s story came to my attention and I haven’t been able to shake it sense. At 97 years old, Bee continues to inspire women all over the world with the WASP story and she does it with a sense of humor, humility, and poise that we at the project have never seen before. Knocking down barrier after barrier, Bee and the other women of the WASP program faced trials, criticism and doubt along their journey. But that never deterred them from fighting for their right to serve their country by flying.

Tonight, on the landmark 60th episode of the Chasing Earhart podcast, and in season 2’s first episode of its “ICON” series, Bee joins us via Zoom from Florida to discuss Women Airforce Service Pilots, her role as a beacon of aviation and why she believes that Amelia Earhart and the Ninety-Nines laid the foundation for women to become empowered and rightfully cement themselves into aviation history.