Patty Willis
American aviator
Patricia Ann Willis (January 6, 1910 – August 1, 1985) was a pioneering American woman aviator.
History
Willis was born in Moline, Illinois, and wanted to fly from an early age. She attended Belmont High School, and went to the School of Art in Los Angeles.
On 16 June 1929, at 19, she received her pilot's licence.
She wanted to enter the 1929 Women's Air Derby but was unable to obtain an aircraft.
“Patty Willis” enters the record as american aviator. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Patty, Willis and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Patty Willis” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Patty, Willis and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 11, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q64748719. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1910, 1985 and 1929.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Patty Willis”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Patty Willis primary sources, Patty Willis archive and Patty research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Patty Willis”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Patty Willis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.