Betty credits them with instilling in her a firm belief that there was nothing she couldn’t do if she set her mind to it. Thus, as a small child, Betty became fascinated with the U.S. Navy N3N Stearmans soaring overhead as pilots practiced their maneuvers over her home in Pensacola, Florida. The seeds of ambition planted by those Stearmans would blossom into fruition a few years later as Betty developed into perhaps the greatest aerobatic aviatrix the world has ever known.
    Her first flying experience came during a 1935 family trip to visit relatives in Alabama. "A man there had an airplane and he took me up for a ride," she remembers. "I was so crazy about it that I stayed a week longer while my family went back home. My dad talked the man into flying me back to Pensacola