[2] In 1906 Beese decided to pursue a career as a sculptor; however, she had to leave her native Germany to study, as German art schools did not admit female students.

She studied instead at Stockholm's Royal Academy[1] from 1906 until 1909, and created a number of works including a bronze bust of the painter Allan Egnell which has survived.

They discussed flying which was becoming known to the public in Germany, inspired by Louis Bleriot's much publicised flight from Calais to Dover in September 1909.

[1] Her father encouraged her to attend Dresden's Politechnic School in preparation for becoming an aviator (hoping she would become bored by it) and she began studying mathematics, shipbuilding, and aeronautic engineering.

Less than a year later, she had persuaded her father of her seriousness and he agreed to fund her studies and living expenses at a Berlin flying school.

[2] Eventually Robert Thelen, the Norwegian chief of construction at a small start up aeroplane building company called Ad Astra, agreed to take her on as a student in any spare time he had.

[2] In 1911, regulations pertaining to the flight test were made more stringent, and Beese, at that point an inexperienced flier, found it increasingly difficult to persuade more experienced aviators to teach her.

Nevertheless, in May of that year she found a new instructor in Weimar, Robert Von Mossner, who allowed her to take complete control of an airplane for the first time, flying his Wright machine.

The director of Johannisthal Georg von Tschudi persuaded aircraft designer Edmund Rumpler to take Beese as a student.

She encountered several setbacks, including sabotage of her aircraft by other participating aviators who were concerned that women pilots would steal their thunder.

[2] She felt that a new cutting edge plane would help attract pupils and used her early training in architecture to begin to design and patent a collapsible aircraft.

[3][1] After the armistice between Germany and the allies was concluded, the Beese-Boutards filed suit on claims of compensation for goods confiscated upon Charles' internment.

[1] Johannisthal airfield, where Beese began her career as an aviator, has disappeared beneath the changing landscape of Berlin; there is no trace of it other than local street names such as Pilotenstraße and Segelfliegerstraße.