Military pilot led ‘life of high adventure’

Inspired after witnessing Amelia Earhart’s arrival on Oahu in 1935, Betty Guild Blake was the first woman to enroll in a new aeronautics course at the University of Hawaii, her family said.

But she had begun flying earlier than that, at age 14 in 1934, according to the Air Force.

The self-described rebel went on to become a graduate of the first Women Airforce Service Pilot training class during World War II.

Blake was among the WASPs who ferried fighters, bombers and cargo planes across the country.

Photorecon, an online magazine, asked Blake in 2010 how she became qualified to fly so many different aircraft.

"The answer was simple," the magazine said. "She went and got the flight manual for that particular aircraft, read through it, and when she was comfortable with the info, strapped in, started the engine, and took off."

Blake died April 9 at age 94 in Scottsdale, Ariz., after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s disease, her family said.

The Air Force said in 2013 that Blake was then believed to be the only living graduate of that first class of female service pilots. The pilots weren’t known as WASPs until the merger of the Women’s Flying Training Detachment and Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron in 1943, according to the Air Force.

Blake was born in 1920 in Honolulu and attended Hanahauoli and Punahou schools, said her daughter-in-law, Deborah Blake.

Her first solo flight was in 1940 at age 19 in a Piper Cub, with Andrews Flying School at John Rodgers Airport. After receiving her pilot’s license she flew sightseeing tours over Oahu, her daughter-in-law wrote.

When she earned her wings as a WASP in 1943, Blake was assigned to the Ferry Command in Long Beach, Calif.

"She flew pursuit aircraft and bombers between East and West Coast military bases, living a life of high adventure that made for great future stories," her sister-in-law, Alice Guild, wrote.

Following her marriage to George W. Blake II, a former Pan American World Airways pilot and veteran of 66 missions over the China-Burma-India "Hump," the couple moved to Scottsdale, Guild said.

Among the planes Blake flew were C-47 Skytrains; B-17, 24 and 25 bombers; and P-38, 39, 40, 47 and 51 fighters, according to Photorecon.

"The P-51 (Mustang) was definitely my favorite," she told the Air Force in 2013.

"Whenever one goes overhead — and there are still a few of them flying around — I hear that sound and instantly know it’s a P-51. It was reliable. I liked the engine, and I just felt safer in it than anything else."