3 Soaring Fame

The hiking and skiing may not be too relevant in itself, but I included this to show how not being in the Air Display had left her wondering. Little did she know she bigger accomplishments were only months away.

Page 58: I tried not to add anything to the trouble she gets into. I hope that reading this as she writes it is one way this book reflects the time period without me adding revisionist points of view.

Page 63: I was very lucky to get Ron Pallas to share his first version of the book with me. I never imagined he first wrote it in English and it was later translated into German. The Wasserkuppe museum owns this book, but I don't know if even they have the English version. I have since lost contact with Ron Pallas. His original manuscript is one of my prized possessions.

Stabsfuher Stabsführer

Page 64: Emmi is how Naomi spelled it but it has been spelled Emy etc. etc. and this makes searching for more information on her a bit troublesome. I got so far as to find her married but never actually found her. I don't know what her married name is.

Kurisch Nehrung Kurische Nehrung

Page 70: I usually added historical events that are relevant. Somehow I missed Germany militarizing the Rhineland just a couple of months before her silver C flight. She took off in Darmstat, but landed in the Rhineland. History books always mention Great Briton and France did nothing when they went into the Rhineland, but Naomi took one of their own airplanes and flew in there.

Naomi had landed in the Rhineland which only two months earlier had been occupied by the military in conflict with the Treaty of Versailles and The Locarno Treaties.

It is hard for me to see Naomi's Silver C flight as a big accomplishment with today's standard. Only when one figures in that her instructors got their Silver C after she got hers does one reconize how this is truly the begining of the sport. The 300 who get the Silver C point is very telling.

Talking with Ruth about Paddok was very interesting! The best part of writing this book was bringing to life characters who were barely a name scribbled under a photo before doing the research.