Ann Shaw Carter

Carter was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on December 5, 1922, and moved to Fairfield, Connecticut, as a child.

[1] During World War II, she studied aircraft building in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

She then got a job with Chance-Vought as a factory riveter, assembling F4U Corsair aircraft, to finance flying lessons.

[1][2] She joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) in 1944, training in Texas, and was a member of the last graduating set before the program was discontinued that year.

[1] In 1999, she and her husband gave 2.2 acres of land to the Connecticut branch of the National Audubon Society, a conservation charity, to facilitate access to a Fairfield wildlife sanctuary.

Ann Shaw in 1944, training as a WASP
A Bell 47B , one of the helicopter models that Shaw Carter flew