Florence Leontine Lowe "Pancho" Barnes (1901-1975)
Florence Leontine Lowe Barnes, nicknamed "Pancho", was a colorful and fiercely independent socialite who made her name as a pioneering female pilot. Born in Pasadena in 1901, the high-spirited Florence thwarted the efforts of her fundamentalist parents to channel her energies in a conventional direction;
They arranged their debutante daughter's marriage in 1921 to proper Episcopalian minister C. Ranken Barnes, she left him after receiving a half-million dollar inheritance following her mother's 1924 death.
Florence "Pancho" Barnes - Aviation's Companion The saga of the Air Force Flight Test Center would not be complete without mention of one of its most enduring friends: Ms Florence Lowe Barnes, known to all the world by her favored nickname "Pancho." Never officially a part of the Edwards Air Force Base community, nor ever directly connected with the Air Force, she nevertheless spent many years as one of its most enduring champions and unswerving friends. In recent years, she has become familiar to the general public as the colorful, swashbuckling friend of America's best known test pilots. But the aviation community has always known her as a skilled professional and one of the respected figures in the Golden Age of flight. Long before Pancho Barnes ever set foot in the Mojave Desert, she had already made her own mark in the progress of American aviation and women's role within it. ...more
 Florence "Pancho" Barnes download a 500pixel image
Florence "Pancho" Barnes http://www.aerofiles.com Contrary to popular belief, and folklore, Barnes was not a working motion picture stunt pilot, nor was she ever filmed flying through a hangar. Her sole contribution to movies was flying, with a few other pilots, past studio sound trucks at Muroc Dry Lakes, to record their motors to dub into "Hell's Angels" after Howard Hughes decided to revise his silent epic as a sound film. A social member of the film pilots, she encouraged them to form a union, opened her home for their meetings, and provided administrative and secretarial services in helping them charter their new organization. In appreciation for her help she was made an honorary member of the Associated Motion Picture Pilots. A heavily-laundered, "Hollywoodized" version of her life story was filmed for television in 1988.
Florence "Pancho" Barnes - Aviation's Companion he saga of the Air Force Flight Test Center would not be complete without mention of one of its most enduring friends: Ms Florence Lowe Barnes, known to all the world by her favored nickname "Pancho." Never officially a part of the Edwards Air Force Base community, nor ever directly connected with the Air Force, she nevertheless spent many years as one of its most enduring champions and unswerving friends. In recent years, she has become familiar to the general public as the colorful, swashbuckling friend of America's best known test pilots. But the aviation community has always known her as a skilled professional and one of the respected figures in the Golden Age of flight. Long before Pancho Barnes ever set foot in the Mojave Desert, she had already made her own mark in the progress of American aviation and women's role within it. ...more
Gallery
 Florence "Pancho" Barnes download a 1000pixel image
 L-R Pancho Barnes, Mrs. Elizabeth McQueen (the founder of the Women's International Association of Aeronautics), Amelia Earhart, Elizabeth Kelly Inwood, Clema Granger (mostly obscured, in background), Gladys O'Donnel (in background with cap and goggles), Janet Roberts, Mildred Morgan, Valentine Sprague Edwards Air Force Base, Air Force Flight Test Center-Headquarters, July 3, 1932 http://www.colapublib.org/history/antelopevalley/faq.html download a 1000pixel image
My thanks go to Jaime McCoin for her assistance in identifying the women in the above photo I have since received a mail from Jim Kirkpatrick, son of one of Janet Roberts who notes... July 3, 1932. Amelia Earhart is greeted at United Airport in Burbank, California. She had recently completed the first solo crossing of the Atlantic by a woman on May 21-22, only the second person to do so (after Charles Lindbergh exactly 5 years before). In the photo, left to right: Florence "Pancho" Barnes; Elizabeth McQueen; Amelia Earhart; Clema Granger (mostly obscured, in background); Elizabeth Kelly Inwood; Gladys O'Donnel (in background with cap and goggles); my mother, Janet Roberts; Mildred Morgan; and Valentine Sprague. This is based on a book "Pioneers of Aviation, a photo-biography" published by Northrop University Press in 1976, by D. D. Hatfield, page 174. The same photo is reproduced on page 120 along with two other photos that must have been taken the same day. The original negative and print reside at Edwards Air Force Base. The back of the print has two inscriptions: "Pancho, far left, with Amelia Earhart (with flowers) & other female aviators who competed in the Women's Air Races and Powder Puff Derbies" and "Pancho with Amelia Earhardt [sic]." The first may have caused many to incorrectly date the photo at 1929, the year of the first "Powder Puff Derby" (as nicknamed by Will Rogers), but note that the inscription uses the plural. Ironically, Hatfield got the year right, but incorrectly states the greeting was to congratulate Amelia after her trans-pacific flight which was actually in 1935. Dating the photo is based on an article in the Los Angeles Times published July 4 which describes the event and has a picture of Amelia, her husband, her stepson, and Mayor Porter; a similar photo is in the Hatfield book. At this time my mother had been flying two years. Though she seemingly did not do anything particularly noteworthy as a pilot, she did set a record for fewest hours of instruction before her first solo in 1930. Simply being a lady pilot was significant at the time! She would have been 19 1/2 years old when this picture was taken. She went on to marry her flight instructor Burleigh Putnam Jr. (no relation to Amelia's husband, George Palmer Putnam). Later she married a flier named Ferguson, and finally another flier who was my father, Raymond Kuhns Kirkpatrick. Her last flying was around 1950 when she seems to have decided that with children, it was a dangerous activity. Jim Kirkpatrick, May 2004
 Florence "Pancho" Barnes http://www.aaaim.com/echo/v3n2/
Further Reading
Review by Patricia Kean, May 31, 2000 "A juicy, smart biography of heiress Pancho Barnes, who wanted only one thing: More." As the tough-talking, hard-drinking owner of the dive bar in the middle of the desert where test pilots like Chuck Yeager hung out, Pancho Barnes had a bit part in Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff."
Title titters aside, it turns out that Barnes, who died nearly a quarter-century ago, and packed at least a dozen eye-popping lives into her 70-plus years, more than holds her own as the subject of a biography. After just a few pages of her life story, it seems only fitting that the likes of Lassie, Amelia Earhart, Erich von Stroheim, Ronald Reagan and even Yeager, Mr. Right Stuff himself, are relegated to mere walk-ons. Pancho, aka Florence Lowe Barnes, was born to be a star. ...more also... Schultz, Barbara Hunter. Pancho: The Biography of Florence Lowe Barnes. Lancaster, CA: Little Buttes, 1996. Tate, Grover Ted. The Lady Who Tamed Pegasus: The Story of Pancho Barnes. Maverick, 1986.
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Florence Leontine Lowe "Pancho" Barnes
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