Marion Alice Orr

Marion Alice Powell Orr, C.M., was born in Toronto, Ontario, on June 25, 1918. Having lost her parents at a young age, she joined the work force after completing grade eight to earn the money necessary to meet her earliest ambition - learning to fly. She commenced her flying lessons at Barker Field, Toronto, and qualified for her Private Pilot's Licence in December of 1939. During the next two years she was employed by de Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited as an aircraft inspector. She earned a Commercial Pilot's Licence in December 1941, and seven months later passed the required flight tests at Royal Canadian Air Force Station, Trenton, Ontario, for a Flying Instructor's Rating, one of only six women to do so.

In August 1942, Orr was hired as Manager and Chief Flying Instructor (CFI) by the St. Catharines Flying Club in Ontario, thus becoming the first woman in Canada to operate a flying club.  She was hired by No. 12 Elementary Flying School of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP), at Goderich, Ontario. Here she became the second woman licenced as a control tower operator of Canada.

After World War II began. private and small commercial aviation was severely restricted. She and her friend Violet Milstead applied to join the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) in the United Kingdom and were accepted. December 1942, she was hired by British Overseas Airways Limited as a pilot with the ATA, and in the spring of 1943 they boarded a ship for England. Orr flew the remainder of the war years ferrying 40 different types of single and twin-engine military aircraft, including Harvards, Hurricanes, Spitfires, Ansons, Swordfish and Tiger Moths from factories in the British Isles to the front line bases, returning with damaged machines to repair depots.

On her return to Canada at the end of the war, Orr was employed as a flight instructor with Gillies Flying Service, Buttonville Airport, Ontario. In 1947 she assumed the responsibilities of Manager and CFI of Aero Activities Limited at Barker Field, Toronto, and two years later purchased the company. Within two years she had trebled its flying hours and turned losses into profits. The sale of Barker Field for development purposes required that a new location be found for her company. In the spring of 1954 work commenced at a new site at Maple, a small town about 20 miles (32 km) north of Toronto, but only after she persuaded the residents that the airfield would be a valued addition to their town. The airfield was officially opened in September 1954, and she became the first woman licenced to operate an airport in Canada.

In 1957 Aero Activities Limited was sold and Orr returned to the flight line with Gillies Flying Service as an instructor. She also spent some time with the Sudbury Flying School where she was one of the first women to become involved in bush flying. In 1958 she left aviation for a year and returned in 1959 as the CFI of her former company, Aero Activities. In 1960 she joined Markham Toronto Airways with whom she remained for a year.

During 1961 she became interested in helicopter flying and on May 16 she was licenced to fly helicopters, the first woman in Canada to do so. Two months later she earned her Instructor's Rating, also a first for a woman in Canada, and was appointed CFI by Vendair, the helicopter school from which she received her training. In September 1961, while on an instructional flight in a Brantley B-2, the engine failed, and in the emergency landing she suffered a broken back. In June 1962, while recuperating in Florida, she received permission from the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States to instruct there, on helicopters.

In July 1962, she returned to Canada to instruct at Donway Flying Service, Buttonville Airport, on light aircraft. However, her back would not tolerate the long hours of sitting in a cockpit, and in July 1963, she decided to give up her life's work. However, she kept in practice when possible by recreational flying. Twelve years later she renewed her Instructor's Rating and returned to flying as an instructor with Toronto Airways Limited.

In 1976 her outstanding achievements in aviation were recognized by the International Organization of Women Pilots, The Ninety-Nines, which awarded her one of its highest honours, the Amelia Earhart Medal. She was named a Member of the Order of Canada (CM) in 1987. Orr died in a car accident in Ontario on April 4, 1995.

Marion Orr claimed she was born to fly - she never wanted to do anything else. During a career of over forty years, she logged more than 24,000 hours of which over 17,000 were as an instructor on singly and twin-engine aircraft equipped with wheels, skis and floats, and in helicopters, a total of 100 different types. She taught thousands of pilots.

Marion Alice Powell Orr was inducted as a Member of  Fame in 1982 at a ceremony held in Edmonton, Alberta.