page_title: Betty Skelton
section_title: Aerobatics
hierarchical_section_title: Betty Skelton / Aerobatics
caption_attribution_description: The Pitts Special (company designations S1 and S2) is a series of light aerobatic biplanes designed by Curtis Pitts. Betty Skelton bought this airplane in 1948, and with it she won the 1949 and ‘50 International Feminine Aerobatic Championships. Her impressive flying skill and public relations ability heightened awareness of both aerobatics and the Pitts design. Skelton sold Little Stinker in 1951, but she and her husband later reacquired it and donated it to the Smithsonian. A volunteer crew restored it from 1996 to 2001. Picture taken at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, USA.
context_page_description: Betty Skelton Frankman Erde was a land speed record holder and aerobatics pilot who set 17 aviation and automobile records. She was known as "The First Lady of Firsts", and helped create opportunities for women in aviation, auto racing, astronautics, and advertising.
context_section_description: Skelton's father, David, organized an amateur airshow in 1945 to raise funds for the local Jaycees. The airport manager in Tampa suggested that Skelton perform some basic stunts, but she had never done aerobatics. She borrowed a Fairchild PT-19 and Clem Whitteneck, a famous aerobatic pilot from the 1930s, taught her to loop and roll. Within two weeks, she had honed her skills and mastered simple aerobatic maneuvers, which she repeated for the air show. Because neither the military nor commercial airlines would accept a female pilot, air shows provided the only opportunity for her to work as a pilot, other than instructing. In 1946, she purchased a 1929 Great Lakes 2T-1A Sport Trainer biplane and performed at the Southeastern Air Exposition, held in Jacksonville, Florida. That was the start of her professional aerobatic career, and also that of the Blue Angels, a new US Navy precision-flying exhibition team. Skelton's repertoire included dozens of acrobatic tricks, but her most impressive maneuver involved cutting a ribbon strung between two fishing poles with her propeller, while flying upside down 10 feet (3.0 m) off the ground. She held the rank of major in the CAP and became a test pilot. Besides piston-driven airplanes, she also flew blimps, gliders, helicopters, and jets.
  After winning the championship in 1948, she bought a rare Pitts Special — a lightweight, open-cockpit (544 pounds (247 kg)) biplane designed and hand built by Curtis Pitts for aerobatics. The plane was repainted a dramatic red and white, and Skelton's Chihuahua, Little Tinker, outfitted with a custom-made working parachute, flew in her lap.
  Skelton was US Female Aerobatic Champion in 1948, 1949, and 1950. Her last two championships made her and her plane, Little Stinker, famous. After her third championship, she was frustrated because no other challenges existed in aerobatics, and she was mentally and physically exhausted from the hectic, nonstop air-show circuit. She retired from aerobatics and sold the plane in 1951, but her first husband Don Frankman and she reacquired the airplane and donated it to the Smithsonian in 1985. Little Stinker is now on inverted display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Washington Dulles International Airport, part of the National Air and Space Museum.
  In 1949, she set the world light-plane altitude record of 25,763 feet (7,853 m) in a Piper Cub. Two years later, she broke her own altitude record with a flight of 29,050 feet (8,850 m), also in a Piper Cub. She held the world speed record for piston-engined aircraft: 421.6 mph (678.5 km/h) over a 3-km course in a P-51 Mustang racing plane.
  She became hostess of Van Wilson's Greeting Time, a radio show in 1950.
caption: Little Stinker in the Smithsonian
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