#2 Oliver experienced an event in February 1959 that underscored her later aviation accomplishments. She was a passenger aboard Pan Am Flight 115, a Boeing 707 on a transatlantic flight from Paris to New York City when it dropped from 35,000 to 6,000 feet (10,700 to 1,800 m). It was February 3, 1959, the same day Buddy Holly died in an airplane crash. These events caused her to avoid flying for the next year, even turning down job offers, with the exception of auditioning for BUtterfield 8, if they were so short notice she could only travel by air. She eventually underwent hypnosis to overcome her fear of flying.[10]
In July 1964, local Los Angeles area news anchor Hal Fishman introduced her to personal flying when he took her on an evening flight over Los Angeles in a Cessna 172.[10] The experience motivated her to return the next day to the Santa Monica Airport to begin training for a private pilot certificate. In 1966, while preparing for her own transatlantic flight, she was a passenger in a Piper J-3 Cub when the pilot ran into wires while "show-boating";[10] the airplane flipped and crashed. She and the pilot escaped injury.[11]
In 1967, piloting her own Aero Commander 200, she became the fourth woman to fly a single-engine aircraft solo across the Atlantic Ocean and the second to do it from New York City. Although she was attempting to fly to Moscow, her odyssey ended in Denmark after the government of the Soviet Union denied her permission to enter its air space. She wrote about her aviation exploits and philosophy of life in an autobiography published in 1983.[10]
In 1968, she was contacted by Learjet to see if she was interested in obtaining a type rating on one of their jets with the intent to set record flights for them. She earned the rating and even flew some charters (having by that time acquired a commercial pilot certificate in single- and multiengine land airplanes), but did not fly any record flights in their jets.[10]
In 1970, Oliver co-piloted a Piper Comanche to victory in the 2760-mile transcontinental race known as the "Powder Puff Derby", which resulted in her being named Pilot of the Year. The pilot was Margaret Mead (not the famous anthropologist), an experienced pilot who had flown in several derbies with different co-pilots. In 1972, her training for a glider rating was chronicled for an episode of the television series The American Sportsman and the segment aired in March 1973.[12]
According to the FAA Registry, the glider rating was issued to Oliver on July 21, 1972. It was her last rating. The registry shows her to have earned commercial pilot ratings for airplane single-engine land, airplane multiengine land, instrument airplane, and private privileges for glider. Her last aviation medical examination was in May 1976; therefore, she could not legally pilot any aircraft except gliders after May 1978, marking the end of her piloting of powered aircraft.[13] |
