Civil Aeronautics Administration

Oh, Lord.

Why? The Civil Aeronautics Administration, the forerunner to the FAA, issued him an experimental certificate for his aircraft, and from that he went into a new career flying tethered balloons at air shows and auto races.

So he's a 19th century carny at that point.

Oh,

She would enter these races, and a lot of times, the, the restrictions, the opportunities were different for men than they were for women, which she found very challenging and was very vocal about and openly shared her thoughts and opinions on how that was structured.

Uh, but I think one of the most powerful examples of the biases that she was fighting at the time in 1935, so this would've been just a little bit prior to her around-the-world flight, there was actually a recommendation that was passed by the Civil Aeronautics Administration, which was the predecessor to the Federal Aviation Administration, that stated that women should not fly near or during their menstrual cycles because they could have fainting spells, and it could cause fatal results.

Like, can you even imagine? That was an official recommendation.

So despite all of, you know, whether it be in an air race, whether it be these types of recommendations, she just kept persisting, and I think that definitely speaks to the strength of a Boilermaker in that essence is that she just kept going, no matter the obstacle, for what she believed in.

Airfields going up all across the territory, men and equipment moving constantly.

The Civil Aeronautics Administration, which ran the country's airway system in those years, was expanding its network of navigation and communication facilities as quickly as it could put them up.

Gillum was flying a Stinson Reliant, a sturdy, reliable high-wing monoplane, the kind of workhorse that had served bush operations well through the 30s.

He had five passengers aboard, all of them Civil Aeronautics Administration employees, and he departed from Seattle, bound for Anchorage.

The routing took him north along the coast, up through the Alexander Archipelago and the Inside Passage.

It was a route he knew.

But the mountains and the cold caught him, and his body was found by searchers later.

The search lasted nearly three weeks.