French women aviators

Yvonne Jourjon (13 September 1899 - 4 September 1985) was a pioneering French pilot and flight instructor. She was the first woman flight instructor in France.

Thérèse Peltier (1873 – 1926), born Thérèse Juliette Cochet, was a French sculptor and early aviation pioneer. Popularly believed to have been the first ever female passenger in an airplane, she may also have been the first woman to pilot an aircraft. A friend of fellow sculptor Leon Delagrange, when he became interested in aviation Peltier soon followed.

Valérie André (French pronunciation: [valeʁi ɑ̃dʁe] ; born 21 April 1922) is a veteran of the French Resistance, a neurosurgeon, an aviator and the first female member of the military to achieve the rank of General Officer, in 1976, as Physician General. In 1981, she was promoted to Inspector General of Medicine. A helicopter pilot, she is the first woman to have piloted a helicopter in a combat zone. She is also a founding member of the Académie de l'air et de l'espace.As a member of the military, she is not addressed as "Madame la Générale" (a term reserved for spouses of generals) but as "General".She started as a Medical Captain in Indochina in 1948, already a qualified parachutist and pilot, in addition to being an army surgeon. While in Indochina, she realized that the most difficult part of her duties was retrieving the wounded, who were often trapped in the jungle. She returned to France to learn how to pilot a helicopter, then flew one to Indochina. From 1952–1953, she piloted 129 helicopter missions into the jungle, rescuing 165 soldiers, and on two occasions completed parachute jumps to treat wounded soldiers who needed immediate surgery.One typical mission occurred on 11 December 1951, when casualties were in urgent need of evacuation from Tu Vu on the Black River. The only available helicopter, stationed near Saigon, was dismantled, flown to Hanoi by a Bristol Freighter and reassembled. Captain André then flew into Tu Vu despite heavy mist and anti-aircraft fire. There, she triaged the casualties, operated on the most pressing cases and then flew the urgent wounded back to Hanoi, two at a time. Later, she was put in command of a casualty evacuation flight.
She continued in Algeria as a Medical Commander in 1960, where she completed 365 war missions. She rose to the rank of Medical Lieutenant Colonel in 1965 then to Medical Colonel in 1970. She had a total of 3200 flight hours, and received 7 citations of the Croix de Guerre.
She has written two collections of memoirs : Ici, Ventilateur! Extraits d'un carnet de vol. (Calmann-Lévy, 1954) and Madame le général (Perrin, 1988).
She is one of eight women to hold the Grand-croix (Great Cross) rank in the Legion of Honour, with Germaine Tillion, Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Jacqueline de Romilly, Simone Rozès, Christiane Desroches Noblecourt, Yvette Farnoux and Gilberte Champion.
She is the aunt of politician André Santini.
She turned 100 on 21 April 2022.

Adrienne Bolland, born Boland, (25 November 1895 – 18 March 1975) was a French test pilot. She was the first woman to fly over the Andes between Chile and Argentina. She was later described as "France's most accomplished female aviator", setting a woman's record for loops done in an hour. The French government eventually recognized her with the Legion of Honor and other awards. Since her death, she has been commemorated with a postage stamp of Argentina.
Born into a large family outside Paris, she became a pilot in her twenties to pay off gambling debts. An early crossing of the English Channel led René Caudron, her employer, to send her to South America to demonstrate his planes, where she made her Andes crossing, assisted, she later said, by a tip relayed to her from a medium. Later in her life she became involved in leftist political causes, and eventually became part of the French Resistance.

Béatrice Vialle (born 4 August 1961 at Bourges) is a French aviator, one of the two operational female Concorde pilots and the first French female pilot on a supersonic airliner.

Camille du Gast (Marie Marthe Camille Desinge du Gast, Camille Crespin du Gast, 30 May 1868 – 24 April 1942) was one of a trio of pioneering French female motoring celebrities of the Belle Epoque, together with Hélène de Rothschild (Baroness Hélène van Zuylen) and Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart the (Duchess of Uzès).Du Gast was known as "one of the richest and most accomplished widows in France," and as an accomplished sportswoman—a balloonist, parachute jumper, fencer, tobogganist, skier, rifle and pistol shot, horse trainer—as well as a concert pianist and singer. She was the second woman to compete in an international motor race.In France, she later became renowned for her extensive charity work. She was president of the Société protectrice des animaux (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, SPA) until her death, and her campaign against bullfighting included disruptive direct action protests. She provided health-care to disadvantaged women and children in Paris, and continued whilst under German occupation in World War II.She was the central figure in the Parisian scandal of La Femme au Masque where she was maliciously but mistakenly named as the nude model in a notorious painting by Henri Gervex. This salacious story involved three court cases, and was reported around the world.Her exuberant social and sporting lifestyle was changed by a traumatic experience around 1910, when her daughter attempted to have her murdered in order to inherit. In the middle of the night, in her own house, she challenged the gang and they fled. Afterwards she devoted herself to French government work in Morocco, and charitable works with animals, disadvantaged women and orphans.A pioneer feminist, she served as vice-president of the Ligue Française du Droit des Femmes (The French League for the Rights of Women) after World War I. In 1904 she became the only woman official of the Automobile Club de France (A.C.F.).
She was known in the press by the sobriquets l'Amazone and la Walkyrie de la Mécanique (Valkyrie of the motor car).

Commandant Caroline Aigle (French pronunciation: [kaʁɔlin ɛɡl] ) (12 September 1974 – 21 August 2007) was a French aviator who achieved a historical first when, at the age of 25, she became the first woman fighter pilot in the French Air Force. Her promising military career was cut short by death from cancer seven years later. She was posthumously awarded the Médaille de l'Aéronautique (Aeronautics Medal).

Marie Marvingt (20 February 1875 – 14 December 1963) was a French athlete, mountaineer, aviator, and journalist. She won numerous prizes for her sporting achievements including those of swimming, cycling, mountain climbing, winter sports, ballooning, flying, riding, gymnastics, athletics, rifle shooting, and fencing. She was the first woman to climb many of the peaks in the French and Swiss Alps. She was a record-breaking balloonist, an aviator, and during World War I she became the first female combat pilot. She was also a qualified surgical nurse, was the first trained and certified flight nurse in the world, and worked for the establishment of air ambulance services throughout the world. In 1903 M. Château de Thierry de Beaumanoir named her the fiancée of danger, which newspapers used to describe her for the rest of her life. It is also included on the commemorative plaque on the façade of the house where she lived at 8 Place de la Carrière, Nancy.

Jacqueline Auriol (French pronunciation: [ʒaklin oʁjɔl]; 5 November 1917, Challans, Vendée – 11 February 2000) was a French aviator who set several world speed records.

Hélène Boucher (23 May 1908 - 30 November 1934) was a well-known French pilot in the early 1930s, when she set several women's world speed records and the all-comers record for 1,000 km (621 mi) in 1934. She was killed in an accident in the same year.