Women of Aviation Week – Lilian Todd in profile
This week marks the 6 th annual Women of Aviation Worldwide Week which aims to foster gender balance in the air and space industry. Here at the IET Aerospace Network we are celebrating by taking a look at some of the inspiring women of the aerospace industry. Today we are celebrating Lilian Todd (1865 - 1937). This was a remarkable woman who was a self-taught inventor with a passion for mechanics. According to the New York Times, Todd was the first woman to design airplanes. Todd worked with patents and began to study law as part of the first Woman’s Law Class of New York University. In 1903 she began to focus on mechanics and aeronautics. Todd was especially inspired but the airships in London and the sketches she saw. Todd was the first woman in the world to build a heavier-than-air machine…