During World War II, Elizabeth “Bettie” Mae Scott joined a small group of women who took to the skies in support of the United States war effort. Scott served as a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), a program that trained female aviators to perform critical flying duties within the United States while male pilots fought overseas.

Bettie Mae Scott spent her early life in Monrovia, California, a city in the greater Los Angeles area. She was born on July 26, 1921, to Frank L. Scott and Virgel (Cochran) Scott. Although relatively little documentation survives about her early years, the 1940 U.S. Census indicates that she grew up in a household with three siblings (two brothers and one sister) and her father served as the Police Chief in Monrovia. Scott remained in the community where she was raised until leaving California for Texas to begin training with the Women Airforce Service Pilots, marking the first time she had relocated away from home.

Bettie’s story emerged during a period of dramatic change in the American workforce. As masses of men departed for military service, an estimated 6.6 million women entered the labor force, taking on occupations that had previously been closed to them. Aviation proved no exception to these national trends, and the U.S. Army Air Forces soon faced a shortage of domestic male pilots.

Operating from August 1943 to December 1944, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program represented a significant development in the professional advancement of female aviators in the United States. However, its creation did not mark the beginning of women’s participation in aviation. Rather, WASP emerged from decades of effort by women seeking greater access to flight training and professional aviation opportunities. Applicants were required to already hold pilot licenses; many having trained through the federal Civilian Pilot Training Program established in 1938. Bettie Scott herself had earned a civilian pilot’s license before applying to the program. Administratively, WASP consolidated two earlier organizations, the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) and the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), into a single program. Its formation also reflected broader global developments, as both Great Britain and the Soviet Union had already incorporated women into wartime aviation roles, placing pressure on the United States to expand women’s participation in military aviation.

The WASP program was highly selective. More than 25,000 women applied, but only about 1,830 (roughly seven percent) were accepted for training at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. Of those accepted, 1,074 ultimately completed the program and served as Women Airforce Service Pilots, an achievement Bettie shared with just over a thousand other women. Such an accomplishment was comparable in selectivity to being accepted into an Ivy League university.

Affectionately known as “Scotty” among her fellow pilots, Scott trained for several months at Avenger Field before graduating on April 15, 1944. Upon graduation, the Army Air Forces assigned her to Blackland Army Airfield and Waco Army Airfield in Waco, Texas, where she served as an engineering test pilot. In this role, Bettie flew aircraft that had recently undergone maintenance to determine whether they were safe to return to operational service.

Test flying ranked among the most dangerous responsibilities in the WASP program because mechanical failures and structural defects could emerge only after an aircraft returned to the air. Many WASP pilots faced similar risks while ferrying newly manufactured aircraft between factories and military bases or towing aerial targets for training. By the time the program ended in 1944, thirty‑eight WASP pilots had lost their lives in service.

The inherent dangers of test flying became a tragic reality for Bettie on the morning of July 8, 1944, when Scott took off to test‑fly a recently repaired BT‑13 Valiant at Waco Army Air Field. The BT‑13 was a basic training aircraft used by the Army Air Forces to prepare new pilots for more advanced combat planes. Shortly after the aircraft lifted off the runway, it climbed too steeply and stalled at an altitude of roughly one hundred feet. The plane rolled and crashed upside down, killing Scott instantly as a result of severe head trauma. Investigators later determined that structural defects in the aircraft’s tail assembly had caused the sudden loss of control.

For many years after the war, the contributions of the WASP pilots remained largely unrecognized because the federal government classified them as civilian employees rather than military personnel. As a result, pilots who died on duty were not provided funeral or body transportation benefits, nor were they recognized as fallen service members. When Bettie Scott died in 1944, her fellow WASP pilots collected money to return her body to her family in California, sending her home in a simple pine coffin. Scott was later buried in her family’s plot at Live Oak Memorial Park Cemetery in Monrovia, California, near her parents. Only decades after the WASP program ceased operation did the federal government formally acknowledge the women’s service. In 1977, Congress granted WASP members veteran status, and in 2010 the pilots of the program were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of their contributions during World War II.

Today, Bettie Mae Scott is remembered as part of a pioneering generation of women in military aviation. During wartime pilot shortages, WASPs stepped into roles that had previously been closed to them. They undertook missions despite the known dangers of the work and the knowledge that they lacked the official status and benefits afforded to military personnel. Women like Scott accepted the risks by pursuing their ambitions as aviators while contributing their skills to the wartime needs of the U.S. military. Their service expanded opportunities in aviation and helped shape the future of women’s participation in the United States armed forces.

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For close to a century, passengers flying into Waco have been treated to aerial views of the Brazos River weaving its way through downtown and the sunlight glistening off the towers of Baylor University. Waco today is served by the modern Waco Regional Airport. This was not always the case however, with commercial air service initially flying into Rich Field, an old army base near the current day Heart O’Texas Fairgrounds. The first commercial flight into Rich Field was a Travel-Air 6000 operated by the Fort Worth based Texas Air Transport (TAT) on March 30, 1929. The old base serviced commercial flights during the entire interwar period, and Waco was part of only two routes operated by TAT: Fort Worth-Dallas-Waco-San Antonio and Fort Worth-Waco-Houston-Galveston.

In 1941, the city of Waco purchased 528 acres in China Spring to begin construction of a new commercial municipal airport. When the United States entered World War II in December of that year, the Army Air Service leased the partially completed airport for use as a multi-engine flight training center, which they named Blackland Army Air Field. Under the command of Col. Emmett F. Yost, Blackland– named after the black soil of the area– rapidly expanded, operating its first flights by October 1942. Cadets at the airfield were graduates of pre-flight schools and were trained at Blackland to pilot B-17, B-24, B-25, and B-26 bombers. Training consisted of intensive flight instruction in Beechcraft AT-10s and Cessna AT-17s, as well as ground classes for radio and meteorology. Additionally, the diversity of squadrons present reflected the changing nature of the Army as a whole: the base was home to the all-black 357th aviation squadron, the 993rd quartermaster platoon, the 748th WAAC squadron, and the all-white 871st twin engine training squadron. Blackland closed as a military air field at the end of the war, with military flights shifting in 1948 to nearby James Connolly Air Force Base, whose airfield today serves as the airport for Texas State Technical College.

After Blackland was converted back into the Waco Municipal Airport in 1945, Braniff Airlines began operations, and Pioneer Airlines followed in 1947. Passenger numbers were initially high, with a combined total of 11,916 passengers in 1947 on ten flights per day. Continental Airlines soon added services as well in the 1950s and temporarily increased the profile of the airport by beginning flights on the large Douglas DC-3, a fixed-wing propeller aircraft that was known for its speed and ability to operate using shorter runways. Enjoying such options was short lived however, as in February 1963, the Civil Aeronautics Board declared that only one airline would be allowed to operate in Waco. Even with the objections of local civic leaders, the fuling forced Braniff and Continental (who had merged with Pioneer in 1955) to cease service in favor of Trans-Texas Airway’s new monopoly. This monopoly continued for the next eleven years until strikes temporarily postponed Trans-Texas Airway’s service, allowing Rio Airways to enter the Waco market with service to Dallas/Ft Worth (DFW).

Beginning in the 1960s, Waco Regional Airport also became a multi-use facility at the behest of the city council. The airport added such amenities as a skeet and rifle shooting range, a soap box derby race track, and the Central Texas Zoological Park, which later developed into the Cameron Park Zoo. The 1970s then saw both a temporary change in name and a decrease in passenger numbers for the Waco airport; briefly known as Madison Cooper, the airport suffered due to airline deregulation. Despite this, there was an increase in infrastructure, with National Weather Service buildings added in 1974 and a radar system installed in 1979. Unfortunately, the passenger number continued to decline in the 1980s in light of the expanded DFW and Austin-Bergstrom airports. Market instability increased when airlines such as Air Spirit and Texas Airlines operated out of the airport for as little as one month. Yet stability was finally achieved with American Eagle beginning service to DFW in 1985.

Waco airport entered the national spotlight briefly in 1987, when a plane carrying then-presidential candidate Al Gore had to make an emergency landing due to mechanical failure. Further, the dawn of the new millennium saw passenger numbers increase with Continental Airlines once again offering service to Houston in 2003. This led to a peak passenger count of over 150,000 that year– a number that fell to a total of 63,000 once United (who had by then purchased Contintental) ceased operations at the airport in September 2012. Currently, American Airlines (parent company of American Eagle) is still the only airline that operates out of Waco and offers short flights to Dallas.

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