Thérèse Peltier

Thérèse Peltier (September 26, 1873 – February 18, 1926), born Thérèse Juliette Cochet, was a French sculptor and early aviation pioneer. Popularly believed to have been the first ever female passenger in an airplane, she may also have been the first woman to pilot an aircraft. A friend of fellow sculptor Léon Delagrange, when he became interested in aviation Peltier soon followed.

Early life and career Thérèse Peltier was born the daughter of a liquor distiller on September 26, 1873, in Orléans Loiret, France. In 1893, she married Marine doctor Alfred Peltier of Paris, where she resided for most of her life. Peltier began to take sculpture lessons and exhibit in numerous salons. In 1908 she received the sculpture prize from the Union of Women Painters and Sculptors, which was the first society of female artists in France. Peltier specialized in wax sculpture and was included along with Delagrange and a group of other wax sculptors in a 1902 profile in The Literary Digest.

Aviation On 8 July 1908 in Turin, Peltier flew as a passenger with Delagrange for a distance of 200 metres (656 feet). She is widely believed to have been the first female passenger on an airplane; however Henri Farman is reported with a Mlle P. Van Pottelsberghe in Ghent, Belgium in late May. Delagrange taught Peltier how to fly his Voisin 1907 biplane and she completed a number of solo flights, although she never earned her pilot's license. After a few training sessions, she flew alone for the first time in Issy-le-Moulineaux. on 4 January 1910 at Bordeaux, she left aviation forever. She wrote to Henri Deutsch-de-la Meurthe, a supporter of early aviation:

Death Peltier died in Paris on February 18, 1926.