Elsa Andersson – Swedish Aviator Figure

Description

Heritage Skies

On 30 June 1920, at Enoch Thulin’s flying school at Ljungbyhed, a farmer’s daughter from Strövelstorp in northwest Skåne became the first woman in Sweden to hold a pilot’s licence. Elsa Teresia Andersson was twenty-three. She had lost her mother at six, and paid for her training out of the family farm at Petersgård.

Flying alone was not enough. In September 1921 she qualified as a parachutist in Berlin under Otto Heinecke, then jumped from 700 metres over Näsby outside Kristianstad, and again at Helsingborg. On 22 January 1922, during a display near Askersund, her ripcord caught around her arm. The canopy opened fifty metres above the ground. She was twenty-four.

She held her licence for nineteen months. Sweden has not forgotten her.

The figure

Cast in resin, available in three scales. Select your scale above — dimensions and price vary accordingly.

VSModels — Real History. Real People. Great Models.