Great Women in Aviation #2 -Florence "Pancho" Lowe Barnes

One of the most colorful characters in aviation history was "Pancho" Barnes. Florence Lowe Barnes was born on July 29, 1901 and she lived at full throttle until she died in 1976.
She traveled alone and in 1927, signed on a banana boat, as a crew member. That boat, she found out after signing on, was also running guns to Mexican revolutionaries. When she got to Mexico she found herself in the middle of a revolution. It was there where she earned her nickname "Pancho." When the shooting got too close for her (a man, standing beside her in the street was shot dead) she decided to hobo across Mexico and ended up on the seacoast where she got a job on an American vessel. She cut her hair, wore men's clothes and successfully disguised herself as a seaman.
In a 1969 interview she was asked what her husband thought of her travels. She replied, "I don't know...I didn't worry about what he thought."