Iris Cummings

Iris Cummings (December 21, 1920 – January 24, 2025), also known by her married name Iris Critchell, was an American aviator and competition swimmer who represented the United States at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. After an active athletic career in swimming, which included a reign as U.S. national 200-meter breaststroke champion from 1936 to 1939, she was accepted into the University of Southern California's first Civilian Pilot Training Program in 1939. After graduation, she worked as a flight instructor prior to being selected to serve her country during World War II as a member of the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). Following the conflict, she returned to California, where she developed and taught a curriculum on civilian flight for veterans returning from the war at the University of Southern California.

After racing aeroplanes competitively during the 1950s, Cummings and her husband Howard Critchell founded the Bates Aeronautics program at Harvey Mudd College in 1962. They ran it together until he retired in 1979, at which point she continued alone until the program's end in 1990. A long-time certified FAA Pilot Examiner, she was the recipient of several international aviation awards and was a member of the National Flight Instructors Hall of Fame. In her later years, she remained active as a lecturer, consultant, and curator of the Aeronautical Library Special Collections at Harvey Mudd.

Early life and athletic career Cummings was born in Los Angeles on December 21, 1920, and attended Redondo Union High School. Her father possessed a Doctor of Medicine from Tufts University School of Medicine and also worked as an athletics coach at the start of the 20th century at Columbia University and as the athletic director at Swarthmore College from 1902 through 1908. Her mother was a Greek and Latin teacher. Iris attended the 1932 Summer Olympics as a spectator and began competing in swimming the following year, winning numerous local and regional tournaments. When it was too cold to swim, she remained athletically active through cycling. While she was not a member of any club during her first year of competition, she placed first in several meets in addition to her participation at the 1933 Southern Pacific Amateur Athletic Union and Pacific Coast championships.

Cummings joined the Los Angeles Athletic Club (LAAC) in 1934 and received her first financial support in 1935, helping her attend that year's Far Western Championships. She was required, however, to raise her own funds for travel to the Games and spent much of her time leading up to the tournament collecting money rather than training. She completed an advanced aerobatics course and earned her pilot's licence in 1940 and, by her 1941 graduation, had acquired enough training to begin work as an instructor. Upon completing a contract as flight instructor for the Navy Cadet Training Program, Cummings joined the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron in December 1942, which later, in August 1943, became part of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). She served in World War II until the organization's deactivation on December 20, 1944.

Following the war, Cummings was called back to USC to develop and teach a curriculum on civilian aviation for returning veterans. She remained active as a flight instructor, as well as helping develop curricula for Federal Aviation Administration institutions. (approximately $7,735 in 2021 terms). In 1962, she joined Harvey Mudd College and, in association with the Bates Foundation, founded the school's Bates Aeronautics Program. She ran the program with her husband until he retired in 1979, She continued teaching classes on aeronautics, however, until 1996. She died in Claremont, California, on January 24, 2025, at the age of 104.