Ann Baumgartner

Ann G. Baumgartner Carl (August 27, 1918 – March 20, 2008) was an American aviator who became the first American woman to fly a United States Army Air Forces jet aircraft when she flew the Bell YP-59A jet fighter at Wright Field as a test pilot during World War II. She was assigned to Wright Field as an assistant operations officer in the fighter test section as member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots program. where she attended Miss Hartridge's School for Girls (now Wardlaw-Hartridge School). Her father was an engineer and patent attorney.

Her inspiration to fly came from a visit by Amelia Earhart to her grade school. She went to Newark Airport with her father to watch the mail planes come in at night.

Baumgartner graduated from Walnut Hill High School in Natick, Massachusetts, and then attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she graduated in 1940 as a pre-med major. Carl continued his career as an engineer and later designed and built hydrofoil boats for the United States Navy and Grumman Aerospace. Together they had two children. With her husband she sailed the Atlantic twice and cruised the Mediterranean, the British Isles, and the French Canals.

Career While her children were young, she worked in flight instruction and for United Airlines and third pilots at Zahn's Airport on Long Island. Her flight ratings included private, commercial, instrument, multi-engine, flight instruction and instrument. Later she became a journalist who specialized in science.

Later life and death During the final years of her life, Baumgartner (then Carl) resided in Kilmarnock, Virginia, with her husband. She continued writing, and authored A WASP among Eagles: a woman military test pilot in World War II that discussed her experience as an experimental test pilot in World War II. She also wrote "The Small World of Long Distance Sailors".

Carl died at a nursing home in Kilmarnock on March 20, 2008. She was preceded in death by her husband on February 19, 2008.