Northrop Grumman Photo
From left, Grumman test pilots Barbara Jayne, Elizabeth Hooker and Cecil (Teddy) Kenyon in Bethpage in 1943.

The Women Who Tested Grumman's Hellcat

Barbara Kibbee Jayne recalls the day in 1943 when she landed at Grumman's Bethpage airfield and found a historic challenge awaiting her: testing the kind of fighter plane the Navy hoped would help win World War II.

Jayne had been flying since 1937. As a child, her wish to fly had been so ardent that she tried it without benefit of aircraft. ``My brother and I used to jump off our garage roof in Troy, New York, to see if we could do it,'' she recalled. ``But my family didn't want anyone flying until they were 21. So I had to wait.''

After earning her license at a California flying school, she set out across the country looking for work in the air. ``I found out I was a woman and that no one wanted me,'' she said. ``I tried everywhere. Forget it.''

The search brought her back to Troy, where she got her big break: She became the first woman instructor in the Civilian Pilots' Training Program, a government organization. She then moved to Long Island to teach flying at the exclusive Aviation Country Club in Hicksville, which counted millionaires and famous fliers among its members: Charles Lindbergh taught his wife to fly there.

When war broke out, Jayne became a courier pilot at Grumman, carrying parts and workers in transport and passenger planes. But after landing on that day in mid-1943, she was sent up in a very different aircraft: An F6F Hellcat right off the assembly line, the kind of fighter plane that was the backbone of the naval air war against Japan.

Two other women pilots, Elizabeth Hooker and Cecil (Teddy) Kenyon, also were sent up to test Hellcats that day -- something, of course, the Navy wouldn't dream of letting them do in combat. ``They closed the field,'' Jayne recalled. ``Told everybody to go home -- just in case things didn't work out.''

Things did work out, and the three served as test pilots at Grumman through the war, drawing the admiring attention of newspapers and national magazines. Jayne, now in her mid-80s and living in California, said her most memorable moment came when she was called to an airport tower and told that Teddy Kenyon was in trouble: The controls on the airplane she was testing weren't functioning.

``They said to her, `Do you want to jump?' And Teddy said, `I wouldn't hurt this aircraft for anything.' And she landed it.'''