Dorothy Hester Hofer Stenzel (September 14, 1910 – February 25, 1991) was an American aviator and stunt pilot.
She had a groundbreaking stunt aerobatics career, often performing as "Princess-Kick-a-Hole-in-the-Sky", and later opened her own flight school in Cornelius, Oregon.
[5] A week before Stenzel turned seventeen,[5] she learned that she could get a plane ride near the Swan Island Municipal Airport in Portland.
"[9] When Rankin heard the story, he offered Stenzel four more parachuting jobs, which gave her enough money to enroll in the ground course.
[13] During the same show, Tex Rankin unsuccessfully tried to fly an upside-down figure eight,[13] a feat which Stenzel would achieve later that year.
[10] On July 29, Stenzel joined a fleet of fifty airplanes and embarked on a tour of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.
[11] Over less than two weeks, Stenzel performed stunts in twenty-two cities,[17] flying a yellow and red Great Lakes biplane with a 90 horsepower motor.
[19] The Eugene Register claimed that after this performance, local security "had great difficulty in keeping the spectators from crowding forward and fully crushing her and her small machine.
[16] Stenzel belonged to Portland's chapter of the National Women's Aeronautic Association, which was led by Edna Christofferson and included noted pilot Edith Foltz.
[21] On February 22, she set the new women's record for outside loops, completing five in a row over the Grand Central Airport in Glendale.
[22] In March, Stenzel set a new record, increasing to 23 consecutive outside loops at a benefit show for the Red Cross.
[24] The Oregonian's aviation editor, Webster A. Jones, described it: "She places the plane in a vertical bank to the left, reverses suddenly into position, completes half of a snap roll to the right, and flies away upside down.
[25] She set yet another record by flying 69 consecutive outside loops, 62 of which were deemed perfectly rounded by observers from the National Aeronautic Association (NAA).
Stenzel made 56 inverted snap rolls in a row,[6] setting a new world record for both men and women.
[29] Noted aviator Al Williams said of her performance: "There's a mere slip of a girl doing stunts that chiefs of the army and navy air units of the nation said could not be done a year ago and the maneuvers the greatest fliers in the world would not have attempted three years ago- and she is not doing it in a $30,000 military plane with a powerful motor, but she is doing it in a light, cheap airplane with a four-cylinder engine at only 90 horsepower.
"[30]Stenzel and Rankin flew to Cleveland, Ohio to receive a plane from the Great Lakes Aircraft Company.
[6] The plane was designed specifically for Stenzel and meant to be flown upside down "with the same ease as in a normal position of flight.
[12] Upon her return, she attended a reception in her honor, which was organized by the National Women's Aeronautic Association and drew 1,000 guests.
She was the only woman stunt artist on the bill, and after watching men pilots go nuts with airplanes in the clouds for a couple of hours the women in the stands nearly applauded their heads off when Dorothy would put on her show.
[40] Later that month, she performed in an air show to raise money for the Goodfellow employment bureau in Shreveport, Louisiana.
[39] Just one month after the flying service was announced in The Oregonian,[39] Dudley Rankin died from injuries sustained while working on his plane.
In 1981, she recalled that "I had watched other women try to carry on a business and be married, too, and decided that I wasn't smart enough to be a good wife and keep up that kind of flying.
[46] There, she saw stunt pilot Joann Osterud fly, and asked her when she was going to try breaking Stenzel's outside loop record.
"[47] Stenzel flew less often in her later years, lamenting the stricter regulations on air travel and "preferring to spend time with her five grandchildren".