Born: 1 February 1915, United Kingdom
Died: 21 July 2014
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Eleanor Lettice Curtis
The following is republished with permission from Magnificent Women in Engineering and was written by Nina C. Baker.
Pioneering commercial pilot and aeronautical engineer.
Lettice Curtis was almost unique in being a pre-WW2 pilot who served through WW2 in the Air Transport Auxiliary and then carved out a full post-war career in the technical side of flying. Eleanor Lettice Curtis was born in Devon into a prosperous and well-connected family, her father W S Curtis being a barrister. She was educated at the very exclusive Benenden School for Girls and then read mathematics at St Hilda’s College, Oxford.
In 1937 she gained her private pilot’s A certificate, at Yapton Flying Club, Ford, near Chichester, and a year later got the commercial pilot’s B licence, which enabled her to get her first flying job with C.L. Air Services in Eastleigh. Charles Lloyd was under contract to the Ordnance Survey, to take aerial photographs for mapping.In 1939 she went to work for the Ordnance Survey’s research department, drawing maps from aerial photographs and the following year joined her many flying friends in the Air Transport Auxiliary, initially at its Hamble base. During her war service, Lettice became the first female to fly the heavy four-engine bombers, including Halifaxes, Lancasters and the the US B-17 Flying Fortress. She had flown 400 of them by the close of the war.