About Noelle Salazar

Noelle Salazar was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, where she's been a Navy recruit, a medical assistant, an NFL cheerleader and always a storyteller. As a novelist, she has done extensive research into the Women Airforce Service Pilots, interviewing vets and visiting the training facility—now a museum dedicated to the WASP—in Sweetwater, Texas. When she’s not writing, she can be found dodging raindrops and daydreaming of her next book. Noelle lives in Bothell, Washington, with her husband and two children. The Flight Girls is her first novel.

Who were the women of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP)?

On August 5, 1943, the WFTD and WAFS merged to create the WASP organization, a civilian women pilots' organization, whose members were United States federal civil service employees. Members of WASP became trained pilots who tested aircraft, ferried aircraft and trained other pilots. Over 1,100 women learned to fly “the Army way”, but never received military status. When the program ended on December 20, 1944, the women returned to their previous lives and the file on them was sealed. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed a law giving the WASP retroactive veteran status. On March 10, 2010, 66 years after the program was disbanded, President Barack Obama awarded the WASP the Congressional Gold Medal for their service.