Female flyers find aviation an uplifting experience

The year was 1929. Nineteen women strapped on their goggles, climbed into open cockpits and started their engines for the first Powder Puff Derby, racing to prove that even women could fly.

Now 80 years later, women pilots competing in the Air Race Classic honor that first trailblazing race — including Germantown resident Pat Manos Kraemer. With a doctorate in biochemistry and several other degrees, Manos Kraemer escapes to aviation as a pastime when she isn’t pursuing her career at the National Institutes of Health.