Buffalo Niagara Film Festival - Buffalo and Niagara Falls, NY, USA

WINGS OF SILVER: The Vi Cowden Story

Synopsis 
- When the country needed every man, she answered the call. 
They weren't formally recognized, received no military benefits – many Americans don’t even know that they exist – yet today, women’s place in this country might be very different if Vi Cowden, and the 1,073 other women like her, hadn’t been willing to do the job they did. And they did it because their country needed them. 
A story of triumph and inspiration over adversity, Vi and her fellow Women Airforce Service Pilots (W.A.S.P.) were not only crucial to the war effort during World War II, they also changed the course of Women’s history. 
Vi was among the first women in the United States to fly military planes. She ferried fighter planes (including her favorite, the P-51 Mustang) from the factories to the air bases where they were desperately needed. She flew enough trips with the WASP to have circumnavigated the world 55 times. 
In this documentary she tells her story from humble beginnings in a sod house in the Black Hills of South Dakota where she learned to fly biplanes, to flying fighter planes for the Army Air Corps in 1943 & ’44. Flying 19 different types of aircraft, she has been an inspiration to many, including one male fighter pilot afraid to fly the P-47 Thunderbolt, until he saw her take-off in one. In 2009, Vi and the other surviving WASP received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor that Congress can bestow.

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Exact Runtime
00 hr : 33 min : 09 sec

Date of Completion
January 2010

Country of Production
U S A

Country of Filming
U S A