[2] WASP participants ferried Air Force pilots and aircraft to their duty stations, and it was the only flying program that accepted women.

She graduated from high school in 1944 and wanted a career in aviation, so she claimed to be 18 to get a job with Eastern Airlines as a clerk,[5] working at night.

[5] At age 18, she received her commercial pilot licence and was certified as a flight instructor the following year, so she began teaching at Tampa's Peter O. Knight Airport.

In 1946, she purchased a 1929 Great Lakes 2T-1A Sport Trainer biplane and performed at the Southeastern Air Exposition, held in Jacksonville, Florida.

[5] Skelton's repertoire included dozens of acrobatic tricks, but her most impressive maneuver involved cutting a ribbon strung between two fishing poles with her propeller, while flying upside down 10 feet (3.0 m) off the ground.

The plane was repainted a dramatic red and white, and Skelton's Chihuahua, Little Tinker, outfitted with a custom-made working parachute, flew in her lap.

After her third championship, she was frustrated because no other challenges existed in aerobatics, and she was mentally and physically exhausted from the hectic, nonstop air-show circuit.

She retired from aerobatics and sold the plane in 1951, but her first husband Don Frankman and she reacquired the airplane and donated it to the Smithsonian in 1985.

Little Stinker is now on inverted display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Washington Dulles International Airport, part of the National Air and Space Museum.

There, she drove the pace car at Daytona, then climbed into a Dodge sedan and was clocked at 105.88 mph (170.40 km/h) on the beach sand, setting a stock-car speed record for women.

[3] She drove the jump boat, L’il Miss Dodge, in a movie stunt above a 1955 Custom Royal Lancer at Cypress Gardens in Florida.

"[2] She competed in races across the Andes mountains in South America and drove the length of the Baja Peninsula in Mexico.

She set records at the Chelsea Proving Grounds and was the first woman to drive a jet car over 300 mph (480 km/h) at the Bonneville Salt Flats.

That same year, she broke Cannonball Baker's 40-year record for the Transcontinental Auto Race from New York to Los Angeles.

She was GM's first woman technical narrator at major auto shows, where she would talk about and demonstrate automobile features,[2] later becoming official spokeswoman for Chevrolet.

[11] Between 1956 and 1957, Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell designed a special, translucent gold Corvette for her, which she drove to Daytona in 1957 to serve as the NASCAR pace car.