The Powder Puff Derby was the name given to an annual transcontinental air race for women pilots inaugurated in 1947. For the next two years it was named the "Jacqueline Cochran All-Woman Transcontinental Air Race" (AWTAR). It was dubbed the "Powder Puff Derby" in reference to the 1929 Women's Air Derby by humorist and aviation advocate Will Rogers.
In 1977, rising costs, insurance premiums, and diminished corporate sponsorship saw the competition come to an end after thirty years. After the commemorative final flight, the Air Race Classic continued the tradition for women pilots.
Read about the original race in: Powder Puff Derby of 1929: The True Story of the First Women's Cross-Country Air Race Gene Nora Jessen, 2002
Famous quotes containing the words powder and/or puff:
“Any gentleman with the slightest chic will give a girl a fifty dollar bill for the powder room.”
—George Axelrod (1922)
“A puff of wind, a puff faint and tepid and laden with strange odours of blossoms, of aromatic wood, comes out the still night—the first sigh of the East on my face. That I can never forget. It was impalpable and enslaving, like a charm, like a whispered promise of mysterious delight.... The mysterious East faced me, perfumed like a flower, silent like death, dark like a grave.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)