Leah Hing

Leah Hing (1907–2001) was the first Chinese American woman to earn her pilot's license.

In 1927, she danced in the Portland Rose Festival alongside seventeen other Chinese-American girls, including her lifelong friend Lillian Lang and future pilots Hazel Ying Lee and Virginia Wong.

Hing was one of the first Chinese-American women in Portland hired as an elevator operator.

In 1927, Hing and five other young women founded the Portland Chinese Girls' Orchestra under the umbrella of the Portland Chinese Girls' Club.

Hing played the saxophone, and was accompanied by cymbals, drums, xylophone, trombone, and banjo.

Lillian Lang and Virginia Wong were also members.

After three years of local performances, they joined The Honorable Wu's Vaudeville Troupe and took their show on the road.

The band allowed them to travel America at a time when few jobs were open to Chinese-American women.

At the time they left, they ranged in age from eighteen to twenty-two.

They spent a year touring the U.S. and Canada, but only played one song, "Happy Days Are Here Again."

Family friend Patsy Lee said that they "just lived hand-to-mouth, but they were able to travel."

While they were playing in Chicago, Hing took her first airplane ride at a school for Chinese-American aviators.

She returned to Portland determined to become a pilot.

Hing managed the Chinese Tea Garden restaurant, where her father was a stockholder.

While working there, she met Tex Rankin, who recruited her for his flying school.

Rankin had taught Native American pilot Mary Riddle and was interested in creating "a 'rainbow', all-female stunt team", though the group never materialized.

After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Portland became the site of a Chinese-American flying school, with the aim of training students to become fighter pilots in the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Hing wanted to attend, but her father forbade it.

However, he did allow her to buy her own aircraft, a 1931 B-5 Kinner Fleet biplane, which she used to perform in airshows up and down the West Coast.

She once made a surprise visit to her brother and sister-in-law's farm in Aurora, Oregon, landing her plane in their wheat field.

In March 1932, Hing had her first flying lesson.

According to her teacher, Tex Rankin, she was a remarkably quick learner.

He shared more details in the Oregonian: "'The first lesson consists of control exercises; the use of the rudder in the extremes, full rudder to the right and full rudder to the left; the use of the allerons, banking the ship vertically to the left and then to the right, and the use of the elevators, diving and zooming the ship several times. The trick is to learn to use all three together. This Miss Hing did after only ten minutes, and at the end of 15 minutes she pulled the throttle back and put the ship into a glide, landing it with little difficulty. I coached her through the speaking tube, but she did everything right. That's unusual the first time for anyone.'"

Hing, who had family in China, wanted to become an aviation instructor for Chinese women.

"I believe that women can learn to fly as easily as men," she told reporters, "and that eventually there will be just as many women flying as men."

It was her opinion that "a country sees only through the eyes of its fliers."

Trained by Tex Rankin, an early aviation pioneer at Pearson Field in Vancouver, Washington, she received her pilot's license in 1934.

Later she became an instrument mechanic during World War II at a Portland air base.

Hing grew up near Salem, Oregon, and spent her school breaks working on her father's hops ranch.

Her mother, Ah Sin Hing, had emigrated from Canton, China: her father, Lee Hing, was born in Oregon.

She had two sisters, Lily and Ruth, and one brother, Peter.

When she was five years old, her father bought a house in the Ladd's Addition neighborhood of Portland.

Hing would live in Ladd's Addition for the rest of her life.

Hing was a member of the Tanda Campfire Girls and president of the Portland Chinese Girls' Club.

Her family were members of the Holt Presbyterian Church.

She attended Atkinson Elementary School, Stephens Middle School, Washington High School, and the Northwestern Business College.

In 1936, Lacey Murrow, brother of Edward R. Murrow, crashed his plane into Leah's while trying to land.

Her plane, which was parked and unoccupied, sustained 500 dollars' worth of damage.

By 1942, she had accumulated over 200 hours of flying time.

Hing once collided with a pothole on the runway, flipping her plane onto its back, and had to have it rebuilt.