Turner Coal Co. where one of her main customers was the Travel Air Corporation in Wichita, Kansas, owned by Walter Beech.

[4][5] Thaden was a friend and rival of pioneer aviators Amelia Earhart, Pancho Barnes, Opal Kunz, and Blanche Noyes.

In 1935, Phoebe Omlie, another pioneer female aviator, asked Thaden to become a field representative for the National Air Marking Program.

In her astonishing victory, she flew a Beech C17R Staggerwing biplane and defeated twin-engine planes specifically designed for racing.

Time magazine wrote on September 14, 1936: To Pilots Thaden & Noyes the $7,000 prize money was far less gratifying than the pleasure of beating the men.

Among the first ten U.S. women to earn transport licenses, they have for years been front-line fighters in aviation's "battle of the sexes."

A fuzzy-haired blonde of 30, Mrs. Thaden has been flying since 1927, has held the women's speed, altitude and endurance records, is the mother of a 6-year-old son.

Smilingly observed Pilots Thaden and Noyes last week when they found they had won one of the two most important events of the Races: "Well, that's a surprise!

Thaden teamed up with Frances Marsalis and set another endurance record by flying a Curtiss Thrush high-wing monoplane over Long Island, New York for 196 hours.

The final chapter of her autobiography, "Noble Experiment," omitted from the 1973 and 2004 reissues of the book, is a short story giving a dystopian vision of the use of women in combat.

It gains particular pertinence in its implicit criticism of the strategic bombing theories of Giulio Douhet and William ("Billy") Mitchell.