Assigned to the Fighter Flight Test Branch at Wright Field, becoming the only WASP and only woman serving as a military test pilot there.
In March 1944, Ann G. Baumgartner, then serving in the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), was permanently assigned to the Fighter Flight Test Branch at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio as an assistant operations officer and test pilot. This posting made her the only WASP and the only woman serving as a military test pilot at that key Army Air Forces research base during World War II.
At Wright Field, Baumgartner’s duties involved coordinating and flying a wide range of experimental and production aircraft, including fighters and bombers under evaluation for combat use. Her assignment came at a time when women were excluded from regular military pilot status and restricted largely to ferrying or support roles. Being given formal responsibility in the fighter test division required overcoming entrenched skepticism about women’s capabilities in high‑risk, technical flying.
This event is historically significant because it marks the moment Baumgartner crossed from support flying into the core of military flight test work, a domain then reserved almost entirely for male officers. As the only WASP test pilot at Wright Field, she opened a path—symbolic and practical—for women to be trusted with cutting‑edge aircraft and complex evaluations. Her work there included participation in early in‑flight refueling trials, testing new gunsights, and flying the RP‑47E, the first fighter equipped with a pressurized cockpit, contributions that helped usher the U.S. into the jet and high‑altitude era of aviation.
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