 Hello, hello. Welcome, welcome, welcome. A few little bit to let folks in. Trickle in that you are here this evening for our presentation for her story, which is about Maxine Dunlap and a little extra bonus of the history of gliding in the San Francisco Bay area. So we have that happening for you and thank you so much for those who were interested in attending on March 1 and coming back at the end of the month. And being flexible with us. So that is really nice. And this photo I have just a little sneak peek is from our San Francisco news call bulletin photo morgue and this is Maxine Dunlap at Ocean Beach in 1929. So there we go. Okay, I'm going to get us started. You are here for part of our her story program. And this is us celebrating women. And we kind of do this every day that we focused in March for women's history month. And we've had a lot of great programs. And we kind of continue will will continue we usually like to trickle out of each designated month. And speaking of her. I'm going to introduce myself my name is Christina Moreta, and I work as the photo curator in the San Francisco History Center. And I am here to present our program I'm going to do a land acknowledgement as part of the program. Start and then review a little bit before we get our presenters going. Here we go. I still have to read it because I don't have it memorized yet. And the San Francisco public library acknowledges that we occupy the unseated ancestral homeland of the raw Matush alone peoples, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco peninsula. We recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. As uninvited guests, we affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples and wish to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the raw Matush community. And we honor the peoples for their enduring commitment to Mother Earth as the indigenous protectors of this land and in accordance with their traditions. The people in Sholoni have never ceded lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. We recognize that we benefit. And we will honor respectfully honor around Matush peoples as we must embrace and collaborate meaningfully to record indigenous knowledge and how we care for San Francisco and all its people. And feel free to share in the chat which land you are from and visiting from. So, so a library. We have books here but we also have lots of programs. So some of you may be new to what we're up to first San Francisco public library, and welcome to one of our virtual programs. And we're kind of still doing a little blend of virtual and hybrid is what we like to call him. So I'm going to share a few things. Oh, in person. I'm going to share a few things that are coming up. And we have what's called on the same page where we're kind of all reading the same book for a couple months. And so the next one is post colonial love poem by Natalie Diaz. And we have our author event with her in conversation with Michelle Cruz Gonzalez on Tuesday, April 26. We have a presentation for climate change about rodeo lagoon. So that's next Tuesday. And so April is climate action month. And we have another one, our earth embracing all communities. And it's going to start or in about 10 days, April 9. And we have a presentation on smart water guarding gardening. And here's something that will be in person at the main library in the correct auditorium. And it's going to be a presentation of Hollywood shakes. So all the times that the 1906 earthquake and fire has started starred in movies on Hollywood screen. So this one should be a fun one. We have a eco sex walking tour another in person opportunity for you. And this is coming up towards the end of the month. And this one I'm pretty excited about because I was really excited about Emily St. John Mandel Mandel's new book coming out. So I had my moment with station 11. So this will be a great thing coming up. And for those who are liking photos, and want to, you know, do a workshop on photos, we have this coming up. It's held the last Monday of the month. So yesterday was, there's one through April is our last time. I just threw a lot at you. So got your teasers. So I am here to introduce our speakers. And I will say that I first got to know Gary virtually and Madison, sir, greeting us from San Diego. And the fun part about having virtual programs is, but I first got to get to know Gary. Oh, I think it was three years ago now. And it was he was looking for photos of aerials of Ocean Beach, because of a woman Maxine Dunlap, who you'll hear more about. And so, actually, I want, I'm going to just leave it at that, because I don't want to give away too much more. And so, but that's just been like a fun part of my job is getting to know people, their interests, and then you're like, Yeah, what, who is this person, what are they up to. So I always get to learn more history of San Francisco by doing reference questions. So, so it's me who's hosting this as well as my colleagues JP and Anisa. So they're the other little spirals behind the scenes. And so we got representation for the library. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about our presenters. Dr. Gary Fogel is has a diverse background in biology and earth science, as well as aerospace, and that has prompted his interest in the evolution of flight, the use of let's see and the history of gliding and soaring. Having been involved with aeromodeling for much of his life, including free flight model airplanes model rockets and radio controlled aircraft. He has established numerous national and world world records for aeromodels. He's also authored several books on the history of gliding and helped preserve the Tory Pines glider port as a historic site. He's also adjunct faculty at San Diego State University, where he teaches an introductory course on aerospace engineering. And then even has a Wikipedia page people. So there's more there too. And then Madison Chiquito is a second year business major with minors in computer science and international studies at San Diego State University. Last year she worked as director at a female lead and stem focus nonprofit make maker girl. And she first discovered her love for space after spending countless hours behind the telescopes at the Shabbo Space and Science Center. Madison is a Bay Area native as well. And so her love for space has only continued to grow since spending the past two summers as a research intern at NASA Ames Research Center. And done that holds a special place in Madison's heart since they're both born and raised here. So I am going to let you to take it away so let me do some handing off of sharing screens. No problem. So let's see. Okay, got it. Can you see it all right. Okay, so thank you again for the opportunity to come speak today for the San Francisco Public Library it's been great to work with staff in preparation for this, this work which was published first at the NAAA conference earlier this year. Madison helped out a lot in the research and writing the wind to the paper and the presentation. So what we're going to do today is first give you some background about flight in the Bay Area, the development of the history before Maxine. So that then Madison can focus on Maxine's history, and then I'll close a little bit with more modern representations of what's happening in Gliding in the Bay Area to bring it up to present. So, the Bay Area is a, it's been a hotbed for aviation for many, many, many years, longer than I think most people realize. And of course, while we're going to focus on women's history, focusing on Maxine Dunlap's history in particular today. We really wanted to provide this context because this context is so important to really understand why Maxine got interested in flight, and how so many other people got interested in flight and why that all happened in the Bay Area. Which definitely includes women, more women than just Maxine Dunlap. So even back to Independence Day 1869, one of the first flights that was ever made in the Bay Area was an unpiloted dirigible, a small-scale dirigible called the Avatar Hermes Jr., which was flown or test flown at Shellmount Park near San Francisco International Airport today. You can see this was a rather large unpersoned vehicle on the right-hand side. You can see the pictures of the photos of the persons helping out with that experiment. And that was the first recorded unpiloted powered aircraft to fly in America in the Bay Area 1869. That kind of started flight in the Bay Area. Not long after, other people were experimenting with lighter-than-air aircraft, balloons, and also experimenting with parachutes. So the first recorded parachute jump in Western American history happened in San Francisco in January of 1887, a gentleman named Thomas Baldwin had the bravery to jump out of a basket of a balloon with a parachute and come floating back down in Bowlinggate Park. This was from Park Van Tassel's Eclipse balloon. This sparked a whole exposition of aerial entrepreneurs that wanted to get into this hobby and make money as aerial exhibitionists into the early 1900s by jumping out of balloons or off buildings with parachutes, even at places like Glen Park in San Francisco. And those performances often included women, Layla, Adair, Essie Viola, Millie Viola, all sisters that happened to turn out would make performances at areas in San Francisco for paying customers. Dairy devils. It was also the case that the first pilot had dirigible was flown in the Bay Area. This was now in early 1900s when heavier-than-air flight was just coming onto the scene. A gentleman named August Greath was making experiments with large dirigibles in San Francisco, and this dirigible pictured on the right, the California Eagle, made its first flight in San Francisco. It's really, I think, the first dirigible flight, first successful flight. One of his assistants, this gentleman, Thomas Baldwin, who was familiar with the parachuting, became his aeronaut and then took the idea, made his own dirigible called the California Arrow, made some test flights in the East Bay with that and became known as the father of the dirigible in America's history. So the first dirigible flight, also a Bay Area achievement. In the 1880s, a gentleman named John Montgomery was experimenting with gliders here in San Diego. These were the first controlled flights in a heavier-than-air aircraft in America's history. He became a professor at Santa Clara College in South Bay, an expert in aerodynamics and the wind circulation to generate lift from aircraft wings. He made in 1905 an exhibition, the first public exhibition of heavier-than-air flight in America's history with an aeronaut that he had trained Daniel Maloney to make this flight, carried aloft by a balloon the glider would release from the balloon and come gliding back down again. For some very excited people below. He also made glider flights in San Jose in 1911, helping to invent new control systems and show the public that heavier-than-air flight was possible. Because of those flights by several people, gliding became very popular, especially with younger audiences. And in 1909, there was a popular mechanics article written by Carl Bates on how to build a glider, which sparked interest in many younger people at the time, building their own gliders in their own garages from sticks and cloth to see if they too could fly off hillsides. It was just a picture like shown on the right. Some Bay Area enthusiasts got hooked on gliding at the same time. One of them was Cleve Schaefer, who established the Pacific Aeroclub in San Francisco in 1909. He constructed one of these gliders, a glider that's shown in the top picture on the right, which would be pulled aloft with ropes to get it going. His sister, Geneve Schaefer, took the first flight by woman in one of glider. It's actually the first, believed to be the first woman to have flown anything that's heavier than air in the United States, credited by the Smithsonian as being the first flight by woman in America, also happening in the Bay Area. Geneve also ended up making balloon flights, some of the first balloon flights in Western U.S. by women in late 1909. These other kids in the general area were building hang gliders very often. One of them was the Oort brothers, Ernest Oort and his brother. They formed what was called the San Francisco Aeroclub. They have this hang glider that was shown here on the right in the newspapers at the time. Again, this is pulling it aloft with ropes to get it started, and you go to a very high sand dune and get pulled aloft and glide back down. These flights were made at 19th Street and Quintara Street on the big sand dunes that will show you pictures of coming up. These first flights were in 1910, so people were flying gliders on the west side of San Francisco since 1910, and you'll see that these dunes will come into picture when we talk about Maxine in just a little bit. I want to be clear though that there's different types of gliding and soaring. What's the difference between the two? In the 1910s, 1900s, the technology of gliding was such that people would go to the top of a hillside, stand aloft, be towed aloft with a rope or jump off this hill, glide to the bottom of the hill just using gravity to glide back down, and then have to walk the glider back up again and do the same thing again over and over again. These were fun flights, but not very high altitude and very short duration, typically of the hang glider type where you're hanging from the glider itself. It wasn't until 1911 that people realized that when wind hits a hill like this is depicted on the right, the wind gets turned up like an inverted waterfall of air. And if you know what you're doing with a motorless aircraft, you can get into that lifting current and store back and forth and remain aloft at the same altitude you took off from or either or even gain altitude. And the first person to have accomplished that in world history was Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk in 1911. He had returned to Kitty Hawk specifically to try out this idea of soaring like a bird. And so people have only been doing soaring flight for almost 100, more than just over 100 years now. It's not it's very brand new technology versus the gliding that had happened back into the 1800s, 1880s and 1890s. The air flight also has an origination in the Bay Area, a gentleman named Feng Ru, who have also researched recently built and powered built and designed his own aircraft his own powered aircraft in East Bay, successfully making a flight in September of 1909. One of the first flights in California's history, very likely the first powered flight in California's history. And then later ended up returning to China to help establish the first Chinese Air Force, taking the powered air flight technology and bringing it back to Asia. But it really was Charles Lindbergh's crossing the Atlantic in 1927 that generated immediate interest national interest in aviation. This was a incredible renaissance of interest in aviation and generated the kids at that time were wondering how they could become lucky Lindy and what lighting then represented an easy way and very inexpensive way to get into the air. Amelia Earhart also became the first woman across the Atlantic, and then also the first to fly from Honolulu back to the west coast of America. She was based in Oakland at the Oakland airport, generated huge local interest in women's aviation at that same time. And so you have these two large figures in America's history, really sparking interest in flight, powered flight and also gliding flight. And at the same time, just weeks before Lindbergh's flight, Mills Field Municipal Airport, which is now San Francisco International was dedicated on May 7, 1927. And because of those activities, other regional airports, right away became powered flight destinations. But the Great Depression came and reinforced that these were expensive opportunities to try to learn how to be Lindbergh and gliding flight again became a very inexpensive way to get into the air, especially for youth in America. So with that, I'd like to then hand it off to Madison and she's going to tell you a little bit more about Maxine Dunlap. All right, so we'll start off with Maxine's early years. She was born in 1908 in Alameda, California. She graduated from Oakland High School in 1927 with an interest in business, and she worked as a local stenographer for an attorney. She left my Nana actually graduated from Oakland High School, not sure what year but I'm guessing after 1929. So maybe two notable alums right there. But anyways, Lindbergh and Earhart really piqued her interest. And she started an AVA Tricks Club for women at Mills Field in 1929. So when she was working as a stenographer she kind of just wasn't really getting fulfilled out of that and she just found this passion for gliding. So we'll explore that in the later slides. Thank you very much. Okay, so Maxine, she showed an early proficiency proficiency for flight. On the right you can see pictured her flight instructor, Lieutenant Donald Templeman of the US Army. It is reported that she completed a loop on her first solo flight, and then after the loops came spins with Templeman. She made national news as the flying stenographer. She expressed interest in a flight from California to Hawaii, but there was no records of her actually making an attempt. So on April 1, just a month or so after the stunts on the right, you can see the article was posted in January 30, 1929. So just almost a little over like a month after her first flights with Templeman. She received a private pilots license on April 1, 1929 at Mills Field. And it was the first private pilots license awarded at Mills. So we have the Oakland Air Circus Dunlap competed in the in the Air Circus in April 1929 the same month she had gotten her license so busy month for her at the Oakland airport with two other very important women aviators Marvel crossing and bar Bobby trout you can see them pictured on the right. So first all women air races. However, Dunlap came in second earning $100 she placed second behind Marvel crossing. And on the right you can also see like a pretty iconic news clipping from the Oakland Tribune, which says they'll be friendly rivals and you can see these three very powerful women in flight. And I just think that's like an awesome news clipping so I just wanted to bring attention to it. And then Maxine is just 1929 was her year she makes an attempt for the endurance record. However, this was an unsuccessful attempt to exceed Louise Stadden's endurance mark of 22 hours a loft. On the right you can see a nice little picture of Louise in the cockpit. And then it will jump and talk about the California gliders club which will prove to be play a bigger role in Maxine story later on. So the clap the California gliders club was formed in 1928 in San Francisco. And by US Army warrant officer Charles Ferguson. On the right you can see Ferguson in the club's primary glider. This was the second glider club affiliated with the Evans glider clubs of America which eventually became known as the National Glider Association. So they purchased this primary glider in early 1929 and then the club grew to have 50 members you can see that this was posted in the Los Angeles Times on January 9, 1929 so around the same time that Maxine first started her flight lessons with temple men. And a little bit more about the California gliders club on the glider operations were made from a large sand dune field near terrible street and 35th Avenue west of San Francisco starting in January 1929. This glider club made local state and national news. California was known to have the most licensed powered aircraft pilots of any state in the nation. So it was only natural for them to try gliding. And they, in fact, they even established a junior air scouts division where young boys could join for free. However, you do have a little fun fact with this one, one young aviator attempted to turn with the primary glider and he actually slid off the seat. But however he was okay he fell into the sand, thankfully. But as a result of this, a seat belt was installed in the primary glider for the best for sure. And just to point out some photos that were recently provided by the San Francisco public library. These sand dunes are on the, on the west side of San Francisco here pictured on the right and on the left, the gliding flights here. We spoke about the work brothers earlier they're over here near sunset reservoir. Some of the flights were made to the west of the sand dunes and most of the flights were back here near the sunset reservoir these photos are from 1936 so it's a little bit more developed than it was back in 1929. Great, thank you. All right, and this is one of Maxine's most notable accomplishments. She was the first woman to receive a gliders license of any kind. So, just to note, six of the first 10 aviators to receive a third class gliders license in the US for members of the California gliders club. So we had some pretty elite pilots and gliders in the California glider club. You can see Maxine coming in at number three. Like I said she was the first woman to receive a gliders license of any kind. Third class gliders license required a 30 second duration. Maxine got her license with flying colors 50 seconds aloft and 990 feet for her first or for her gliders license and then on the right you can see a pretty iconic photo of Maxine. I think this one's really, she just looks awesome in this one so I wanted to draw attention to it. And then here's some footage of Dunlap's first flights. I thought this was really, really cool to include just because I didn't realize how crazy glider pilot people were until I saw this. She looks like she's just floating. It's like doesn't, well this isn't, this is sped up. You can see, not the full 50 seconds, but here we go. Yeah, we do believe this is one of the first two flights she made. And you can see the people running in the background are running faster than normal so that was 50 seconds kind of smashed into 20 seconds. But you get the idea of the sand dunes and then they haul the glider back up and someone else would jump in and do the same kind of have fun flights. Sorry, here we are. Thank you. And then we have Dunlap in the Ferguson primary glider pictured on the right. These flights were from a high sand dune at the Riviera Street and 23rd Avenue, which is roughly the current location of Abraham Lincoln High School. It is reported that Dunlap had never seen a glider until shortly before her first hop, which I think is really, really cool. You can see her pictured on the right. I, I, I, this is one of my favorite like news clipping so this made national media attention it was a huge deal. All across the country, it says big girl license as first US women glider pilot, and you can just see like I said it looks like they're floating floating along into fame it just is the craziest thing this was April 29, 1929. Same month that she got her private pilot's license just a couple months after she had started her flight lessons, which really just shows how much of a knack she had for flying. And then this is how we're going to tie the California glider club back into Maxine storyline so here we go. May 13, 1929. Charles Ferguson announces he plans to cross the Golden Gate from the north side to the Presidio using the club glider. Clearly this led to a lot of disagreement within the club. The club members were like, Well, that's all of our glider we all use that you can't do this crazy attempt and expect us to be okay with that. And Ferguson argued well this is my, this is my club this is my personal property, and the steering disagreement plays out in the local papers for the entire public to see. So he goes to make this attempt, despite the disagreement from the club on May 30, however, an attorney secured an injunction just prior to his lunch launch so he was unable to make this attempt. Legal issues escalated through June into July taking all the fun out of glider operations and eventually Ferguson was removed as club president. Well, this is all going on Maxine decides to just continue her efforts in powered flight from June 3 to June 8 in 1929 Maxine Dunlap Bobby trout and model crossing get together again, get the bag from the band back together. So this is a good wheel tour of the seven Northern California cities starting in Sacramento and ending in Monterey, which must have just been completely gorgeous that'd be awesome to do and in September 12 she was all 1929 was a big year for her September, September 12, 1929. She gets married to her flight instructor, Donald Temple, which is kind of crazy. And then this soap opera that is the California gliders club the get continues to play out. Ferguson finally makes up with the club, but October 9, the same year. He again announces a plan to glide across the Golden Gate. He initially proposed as line point to Chrissy fields, north to south, north to south, but the reality was a launch at Chrissy field north via air to launch to 2000 feet. On December 8, 1929, he goes to make this attempt. However, the first attempt resulted in a force landing at a high speed, damaging the landing gear on the primary glider. And if this wasn't telling enough he goes on to make a second attempt, which results in a slack in the line, then tremendous tension pulling the front of the glider off and ejecting Ferguson who died on impact. It was a very, very, very sad ending for Ferguson. But it was like he wouldn't stop until he made this attempt so in this attempt the club primary glider was destroyed and the California gliders club was kind of left in shambles at this point until Maxine Dunlap steps in. So in early March 1930, the next year, Maxine was elected as a new president of the California glider club. She was the first woman to be president of the glider club in the US and the club is reborn with 75 members. You can also see that other glider clubs begin to form we have the Floyd Bennett glider club the Bay cities glider club in the San Francisco gliders club and on the right another great news clipping from the Oakland Tribune. Girl is head of glider club and you just see Maxine looking super cool and important. So, at that same time, because of Maxine's involvement in gliding women in other areas of the nation, especially in California, began to have interest in gliding to one of those was Ann Lindbergh. And so, of course, Charles Lindberg already had considerable fame and had known of a gentleman named Holly bolas in San Diego who was the superintendent of construction on the spirit of St. Louis. So you already had a connection to this bolas gentleman in San Diego, and bolas was a recognized glider champion by that time. So Charles came to San Diego, specifically with intent on learning how to do soaring. But along with Charles came and and and expressed interest to do this as well. In 1930, they both took lessons from Holly bolas here in San Diego, and it will be remiss in any her story month about gliding to not mention and and Lindbergh's fame because here in San Diego she became the first woman in America to receive a first class quarter license with her in January 1930 here in San Diego. Maxine's license was the third class by the licenses third second and first, first being the hardest to achieve, and with considerable flight experience already achieved the third the second and the first in one flight here in San Diego, both and and Maxine and other women really opened up soaring for women in general across America. And there's the national news all Maxine and Lindbergh and Ruth Alexander and other general other ladies presenting to the gentleman at the time that women can do this too. The Lindbergh's flew from Point Loma here in San Diego also made a trip to near Bakersfield to do soaring. Also made a trip to Carmel to do soaring along Big Sur, just south of Carmel. And at that event when Charles Lindbergh and Lindbergh came to northern California, they happened to land at Mills Field to get to start on their journey to go then set down south to Carmel, and got to meet Maxine Dunlap. So it was the first time that Maxine had ever met the Lindbergh's, and it was this connection between both and and Maxine that I think was lasting for both of them. Here's a picture of and getting in the cockpit on the right of Ebola sale point here in San Diego in 1930. Because of a Lindbergh's accomplishments here in town in San Diego, a women's glider club form called the Lindbergh's glider club you can see them all here waving. There were glider clubs that and form specifically for women all around the nation, because of these activities. The soap opera that was happening at the California Glider Club at this time, sort of precluded this happening in San Francisco but Maxine's involved in getting that club restarted, made it sure that women could also join that club to. Alright, thank you so much Dr. Fogel, go back to Maxine and her aerial demonstrations. Like I said earlier she was able to complete like a loop on her first solo flight, just very very proficient in flight. She assisted with an aerial demonstration for Harbor Day over San Francisco and on August 21 1930. On the right you can see her pictured with powered aircraft, and then unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for Maxine, she divorces Lieutenant Temple men September 14 1933. They're married for a little bit under four years and they're divorced due to his erratic behavior and alcoholism. However, she goes to remarry. Joseph J Bennett, a Coca Cola executive in Dallas on October 14 1934. On the right you can see just how I guess important or public Maxine is just because her divorce and her wedding is reported on in LA Times and Oakland Tribune this just goes to say like, see how much of a like Superstar she was and how much she made the news for her accomplishments and her personal life. At the Tulsa Southwest Air Races Dunlap established a new world speed record for women in light planes. And she set this all just around, all around to 76.8 miles per hour, over 100 kilometer course. From Tulusa to Oak Mowly Oak Moby. Wow. On June 29 1935. On the right you can see the aircraft she did this in which is pretty awesome. I think. Yeah. Thank you. And it was a it was a test of a new Spartan aircraft so Spartan aircraft company was based in Tulsa. And part of this was a test to show the speed of this aircraft and they effectively got Maxine to set this record to show how wonderful Maxine was but also a wonderful Spartan aircraft are. Yay. And unfortunately we don't know as much as we would like to know on Maxine's later years this is the photo on the right that you saw in the beginning of the presentation. We do know that she moved to New Orleans and assisted in the 99th chapter in that area. She moved back to California living there until at least the 1970s. It is believed she passed away in Dallas on October 9 1996. In conclusion, Maxine is a dairy and woman aviator who rose quickly to national fame for her efforts with powered and unpowered aircraft, largely in California. She was the first woman to earn a gliders license, the first woman to serve as a gliders club president, and she established a world speed record for women and light aircraft. And in her later years she helped promote the importance of 99s nationally, along with all these accomplishments that are very, I guess, for lack of a word tangible Maxine really paved the way for females to join gliding and just get into flight in general and like Dr. Fogo said an inexpensive way for kids and younger people to get into flight and Maxine really showed that not only can younger people get into flight but they can get into it very quickly and females were very, very welcomed in well not welcomed but they were rooted for in the sport. I should mention also that the 99s are an organization specifically for the advancement of women in aviation. That organization started at the same time we've been speaking about with people like Amelia Earhart, Bobby Traut, Marble Cross and other people, along with Maxine being there to help promote nationally the importance of women's aviation so the 99 still exists today to help promote women in aviation nationally. So, Madison, thank you for that part on Maxine I want to though put a another ending part on gliding part because there's been so much that's happened since the time of Maxine that it's again remiss to say that we just stopped in gliding at 1930 and that's the end of gliding. I think many people don't realize how important gliders were in World War two, for instance, so there were these very, very large gliders that were developed. Both every, every Allied force had a glider division. Both every army in World War two had some kind of gliding capability. They were towed behind very, very large aircraft, generally to bring troops behind enemy lines for invasions like the day or other types of invasions to plant personnel behind enemy lines so that when you have an invasion you're already attacking the enemy from both sides. These very courageous pilots would fly these gliders armed only with a pistol and the instructions to get back through enemy lines to get back to London for instance to go do another assault glider behind those very dangerous missions involved. It was, as I mentioned early on in the, in the presentation, we started out with gliding just down hills with gravity helping us out getting to the bottom and going yay we survived. Then we figured out how to do soaring by understanding how wind hits ridges and creates lift and we can stay in that as a sale plan pilot and that was known again from 1911 on thermal soaring these types of cumulus clouds that you might see on a on a plane that have lifting currents under them called thermals and sometimes you see birds using them and circling in the lift. People learned in the 1930s 1920s 1930s that it would be possible to fly in a sale plane and flying those kinds of same conditions and go up underneath clouds as well. And you can then transfer that altitude into distance and do cross country soaring which is a lot of fun. Also in the 1950s, people recognize that when a when a jet stream for instance hits a very, very large mountain range like the Sierra Nevada. It generates a wave behind the Sierra Nevada of considerable size and distance. These, these waves can go thousands of feet into the air 40,000 60,000 feet into the air and go for distances from the Sierra Nevada all the way across the state of Nevada into Montana, that kind of a thing so you have a systems of and it's possible as a sale plan pilot to fly in these waves. If you know what you're doing in these lifting areas in the blue with no motor at all and go up to tremendous altitudes because the energy is there in the atmosphere ready for us to use. So glider pilot sale plan pilots are very proficient at trying to look at the atmosphere and extract energy without any kind of propulsion and use what nature gives you rather than compete with nature. So gliding has continued in the Bay Area. It's it continued to grow after World War two. Notably, the Ames, NASA Ames, they had their own soaring club for quite some time that morphed into becoming the Northern California soaring Association which still exists today. A very large club you can take a ride and a sale plan if you're interested. There's also the Bay Area soaring associates group and also down at Hollister you can take rides and sale plans and Hollister if that's of interest after this presentation hopefully will be, especially for women. The Bay Area has also become a center for the sports of hang gliding and paragliding. Since the 1970s and 1990s, respectively, along the coastline at Fort Funston there's the club the fellow feathers of Fort Funston hang glider club, and also there's the Bay Area Soaring Association at fly both those clubs fly from many sites including Fort Funston all across the Bay Area in ultra light aircraft, these are fabric aircraft to have a particular frame, or in the case of a paraglider, no frame at all but it's like a parachute with an airfoil and they can control the airfoil and stay up in the air and effectively be a bird and use all these different types of lift that I've mentioned, we've mentioned in the lecture. And lastly, radio control gliding has also been very popular in the Bay Area, both ridge soaring as I mentioned and also thermal soaring. There's two different clubs, probably more the North Bay Soaring Society and the South Bay Soaring Society or the two that I'm most familiar with. But also there's an international organization that formed out of the Bay Area called the League of Silent Flight, which is a proficiency group for radio controlled model soaring different levels of achievement just like there's the third class second class and first class starter license in real soaring. There's this League of Silent Flight that has different proficiency levels of technique. And that is now an international kind of level of, why are you level four level five pilot, you know, and in the world, which is interesting. All of that started from this radio control type of flying in the Bay Area from the 1960s to today. So, both Madison I would love to thank, not only the the San Francisco History Center for, for allowing us to give this presentation but for the San Diego Airspace Museum as well for their archives, great archives to be able to pull from and also use photos from. Again, this lecture was first provided to the, the ARAA American Institute of Electro of aeronautics and astronautics. We did that through the side tech meeting that they have annually, and Madison gave a great presentation at that event. But specifically today we'd love to thank the San Francisco Public Library specifically Christina and Jean-Pierre for inviting us and providing us the material that you've seen. Some of the wonderful photos of the Bay Area in celebration of not only Maxine Dunlap at Women's History Month. So thank you so much and we'd be honored to take any questions you have if you'd like to contact us. This is our emails but happy to take any questions from the chat or online. Thank you. That was wonderful. Thank you so much. And that's great. And I also like I had to hold myself back to read more about Maxine Dunlap. I wanted to wait for the presentation. So, Let's find out more Christina, please let us know. Yeah, but now I was like, Oh, there's some gaps. I could go find out more info. Absolutely. Now I'm ready. Okay. Perfect. So for those who would like to ask any questions you can put them in the Q&A section of the, not the chat but the Q&A section, but it looks like we have a couple already so I'm going to read a few of those. Oh, and one's kind of a little semi popular question too. And so the first one is gliding is a relatively small part of the aviation world. I guess that depends on perspectives. So, but the main one is have either of you been flying in a glider. So that's the first question. I'll take it first. And then Madison, if you haven't had a glider experience, we need to get you in a glider. I've had the pleasure of being in gliders as a passenger, all around the world here in California in Germany in Hawaii. All with the experience pilots as a passenger. I've never had the honor of getting a license because I have a garage full of model gliders. And that's my passion. That's just where I'm going to go and stay, stay doing. But I need to remind everyone that it is the case with powered flight that as soon as the powered engines don't work anymore, it's a glider. So the best powered pilots are also glider pilots and they know how to handle an aircraft, even if it has no motors to make use of the atmosphere to continue their flight. Madison. All right. Um, so I guess we will have to get me in a glider. I grew up not really, I didn't really have any one of my family or like family friends or anyone that was like into flight. So it was really just me kind of figuring this out and thankfully, I met Dr. I feel like fresh and near at San Diego State. So I was able to learn so much more but I need to get into a glider I go to the glad the Tory pines like glider place little where the golf courses and they go parasailing and paragliding and I'm always like whoa like that is so cool but yeah I haven't gotten the opportunity, but I would love to over Germany, Hawaii, any of those places would be nice. So for comment. I was doing my bachelor's degree at UC Santa Cruz in the 80s. And one weekend I took the time off to go to Fremont because at Fremont they had a glider port sky sailing glider port on the west side of the 80s there for a little while and there was a flight flying back and forth on Mission Ridge with a again with as a passenger but a lot of fun. Unfortunately that airport's no longer there. It's now built up, but that that group moved to San Diego so now they operate a glider port and Warner Springs east of San Diego, it's the same company that was doing it before. Nice. And I had, for those in the audience, I had asked Madison the same question to so and, and, oh, and I guess I think you, Dr. Fogel you had shared some of what you went over but somebody had asked if if you had good sword over any of the landmarks mentioned this evening but I have a great question so unfortunately of course you know, development is development and a lot of the sand dunes are now under houses. So, and in fact I bet hardly into the people living on the west side of San Francisco know anything about the gliding activities that happened there it's very deserving of having a plaque there to honor Maxine and the first woman's presence in that area of something like that should be done. But of course I flown over that area a lot in commercial aircraft out of SFO but never in a glider. Yeah, I did notice there was one chat that came through about Chrissy field. And of course Chrissy field was an aviation field for some time. There was another field, which is now Marina green near the airport, which was also an airport used for airmail back in the day in the 1920s. That was actually Montgomery field named after John Montgomery the glider pilot but I had mentioned to you before. Before it was Marina green so that Marina green was actually a well known airport about the same time as Chrissy field. Oh, okay, and then we have another question here, Madison maybe you're the best one to answer this. How many hours that did Maxine fly during her attempt to for, I guess the question is like how many hours had she had flown to do her record. I think that's what the question is. This actually may be a better question for Dr. Fogle he may not. I don't have the answer either. But is it wasn't an hour thing that you had to fly X amount of hours or is that maybe like the gliding is like you just have to be up. Yeah. So, I'm not sure exactly which record the question is referring to there was the attempt she made to to better an endurance mark which I think was 22 hours by women by Luis that and at the time, and she was unsuccessful that I'm not that I'm sure the papers would say how long she stayed up but I can't remember the number at the moment. For her glider license though, if I remember correctly it was like a 30 seconds requirement you have to stay in the air for 30 seconds without a motor. And she went something on the order of 60 seconds or something of that nature. A little bit longer even you remember. I think it was 50. 50 seconds there you go so 50 so almost twice as much as she needed. That's, that's hard to do at those days on those kind of gliders with a lot of drag in a primary glider. They're just not, not aerodynamic at all. And so to be able to stay up for 50 seconds is better than most people can do. Yes. Perfect. I think that was given a good answer. Let's see we have Madison how did you get interested in this topic, or how did you discover Maxine. Oh yeah, so I wish I could say I've been gliding my whole life and I just naturally this came to me but no, that was not the case I took my, I actually took Dr Fogel's intro to aerospace class my freshman year. I loved his class so much he talked a lot about the gliding he did with the remote powered aircraft and I thought that was so cool. So, I talked to him and he told me he does a lot of historical research and we kind of both talked about Maxine her being from the Bay Area, like I was from the Bay Area. And I found the gliding portion to be super interesting just because that, like we kind of said earlier it's kind of like a, I guess a smaller part of aeronautics, and I didn't really know that much about it so I was like really excited to learn and then it just was so awesome and learning about the whole like California Gladys Club like soap opera was like very interesting and I just thought, you know, it was just a perfect little mesh of all the things I was loved to learn about so to be fair if I can add on to that so as soon as I mentioned this opportunity to mass and I remember her being really excited that this was a woman aviator in the Bay Area pretty much where she grew up. And she was really enthusiastic about that. I had researched a little bit about Maxine and had reached out to the San Francisco Public Library before I met Madison to find out more myself about this gliding that was happening. There was so much written about Maxine and the gliding part of this story in 1929 1930 that I was sure there was going to be like another like you know 10 years of newspaper articles about Maxine because she was so popular at this time. So when I brought this to Madison I'm like you know I haven't had a chance to look at the later part of her story but there must be a lot there. And together we both went and looked and said, there's not a lot there. What happened to her. So it was really hard to find the rest of this story about her. She just probably by design did not want the public line might anymore as soon as she remarried the coca-cola executive she kind of tone her tone her newspaper career down and kind of stayed out of the limelight so it became really hard to track down what she did and Madison did great work in detective work trying to figure that out from the newspapers I was hoping to be more but oh well. She did a great job. Yes, yes. And I was like, okay I'll go find out some more too. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah. It's like a perfect librarian challenge. Yeah, let's see and then Dr. Fogle are you working on any projects or currently or research interests that you'd like to share for aviation. Yes, sure. I do a lot of things as you mentioned the beginning. I just published a book about this park Vantassel gentlemen, who is the balloonist that was helping Montgomery with launching of balloons. He had his own fantastic career in aviation, taking ballooning and parachuting around the American West, and then to the world. He went on a tour, much like around the world in any day is kind of thing but went on the around the world as an aerial exhibitionist in the 1890s which was kind of unheard of at the time, bringing ballooning and parachuting to Asia, Southeast Asia, India, Africa, Persia, Europe back to America. And as a part of that he also opened up those skies for women so many of the, the, the troop he had going and doing that tour, many of the people along on that tour with women that would jump out of the balloons with parachutes, coming back down for paying customers to watch this spectacle happen. So if you go to Australia for instance the first women aviators in Australia's history where park Vantassel's aeronauts, daring female aviators that would jump with parachutes. If you go to Bangladesh, the first person to have flown in Bangladesh's history was Vantassel's woman aeronaut that jumped Jenny Vantassel from a balloon with a parachute. You go around the world and just watch this he really opened up that kind of aerial exhibition for women too, which is a fabulous part of the story. Very cool. And I went, Madison just say, know that this is here that there's a suggestion that the Lake Tahoe area has world class soaring. So that's an ideal location for an introductory flight. Well, I will keep that noted because I will never turn down a trip to Tahoe, especially in the summer. I think that would be super fun. I agree. That's a good idea. Yeah. And there's also a little, or maybe you could share too it's more kind of like a comment than a question but there is a greetings from someone in Eureka. And there's some and they say that as you know there's California aviation history farther north than the Bay Area. And so he's the person will be in touch in regarding that research here, but maybe to share some things. That's perfect. Thank you for bringing that up. Absolutely. It's the case. And in fact, when Montgomery was inventing and helping to invent gliding flight and aerodynamics he spent some time up at a Roneville, which is up in Northern California as well teaching, but also doing experiments with model gliders and understanding aerodynamics up in that part of the world before you move back down to Santa Clara to take up his professorship so absolutely. We were focused on San Francisco because of Maxine, but of course fabulous other aviation has happened all over Northern California, more than we just presented today. Yeah, great. And then I think mine. Is there anything that we should. You want to share a little bit about a I a. Sure. Yeah. So again, this is the American Institute of aeronautics and astronautics America's largest aerospace organization. We have youth memberships, women involvement, women in engineering, a lot of STEM programming, very interested in bringing in young professionals to make presentations like type medicine help at SciTech, and also today, and a great organization if you're interested in in aerospace as a career. It's the organization to belong to in America. And I think that wraps up the Q&A that oh, oh, there's something. Okay, let me just read this before. Oh, it's kind of more of the little more of a share about kind of the, I'll just read it, like the fate of municipal airports glider operations in the San Francisco Bay area have been closed. Push out by urban growth. Yes. Unfortunately happening, not only just in the northern California but Southern California too. There was a glider port in back of ill it's no longer in operation. I believe it's, there's also one in forgetting the name, north of their calistoga. I don't know if that's in operation anymore still but it's getting harder and harder and harder to find the land to be able to take off like I mentioned the Fremont airport's gone. And Hollister is like that's how far you have to go away to find a glider port which is not not the way it should be, especially for something that's so environmentally conscious, and not colluding and not noise making. You know, it's the right way to be flying and it's so far away for people to use which is a shame. The same things happening in Los Angeles, lots and lots of historical reports are gone now. And in San Diego and it's the, it's the pleasure we have the Tory pines glider port which is kind of like one of the last veteran vestiges of these 1930 glider ports that dotted the California coast. It's the last one remaining kind of like the roller coasters that that timeframe. This is the last one. I made the pleasure of trying to preserve it back in the 90s. Still, of course, always debate and difficult to get piloted sail planes to fly there again we're trying our best to do that. But yeah, this is the way it's going. Kind of a interesting 100 years later. Unfortunately, I wish there was more gliding for youth involvement. It should be the way it should be. I should, I should mention before we go Christine that in in Germany, for instance, we're gliding really had a rebirth after World War one. In the universities there have what they call an aqua fleet, a school in the engineering club is dedicated to building sailplanes, not only from the building part but the design the construction the flying of sailplanes because it's inexpensive relative to power aircraft. And it teaches university aged students how to do the construction how to do the design and the and the thrill of actually being able to watch something they've made fly. And there are each major engineering college in Germany has an aqua fleet. There's also a wonderful aqua fleet here in California at San Luis Vispo Cal Poly San Luis Vispo that does that kind of training for students which is fabulous. And I've had the pleasure last year to help start up an aqua fleet at San Diego State University so we're trying to infuse that kind of youth involvement and stem and sailplane construction here in California at least and see if that can grow nationally to get more more interesting like that. And as you mentioned it's okay for the environment so we could have had it for climate. Exactly. There you go. Exactly. Okay, well, this was very wonderful and thank you so much for everyone who attended this evening. And you can also share the link with your friends and family for YouTube or your groups, your gliding friends. And thank you, Dr. Fogel and Madison for joining us this evening. And thank you, thank you. Thank you, Christina. Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity. Thanks everyone. Yeah, is awesome.