Erin Miller

Harmon’s granddaughter, Erin Miller, launched a grassroots social media and lobbying campaign to get the decision reversed. Miller describes the successful outcome in her book Final Flight Final Fight: My Grandmother, the WASP, and Arlington National Cemetery and wrote a children’s book What Grandma Did about her grandmother. But Miller herself was not a pilot until a chance conversation with aerobatic pilot Patty Wagstaff that prompted Miller to start flight training. She’s quickly amassed hours, ratings, and experiences and is all-in aviation from now on. Her grandmother would approve.

How did you get started in aviation?

I’ve always been interested in aviation and space. I built model rockets and airplanes when I was a kid. My dad was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam for the Marine Corps and my grandmother was a WASP pilot during World War II. I ended up doing many other things including graduating from law school and becoming an attorney. After my grandmother died and our family learned that Arlington National Cemetery refused to accept her based on her service as a WASP, I came to the aviation world through leading a campaign to have a law passed to recognize their service. I spent a lot of time at airshows and aviation events to share the history of the WASP program through talks and my books. Through that, I met lots of amazing people, many of whom are pilots and enjoy sharing their airplanes and flying with me. I was reluctant to spend time and money on flight training because I didn’t envision myself becoming a career pilot. I was talking to Patty Wagstaff, and she encouraged me to try flight training and explained that there is value in the process of learning to fly even if it doesn’t become a career. After that conversation, I went to the AME [aviation medical examiner] and then started flight training.

Your biggest challenges?

The biggest challenge for me is balancing time for flight training with my job and aviation events I do including talks about the WASP, book events, and traveling to airshows to narrate for Bob “Rooster” Schmidle’s performances (one of my CFIs), and even announcing for the airshow.

Favorite aircraft?

I don’t have a favorite aircraft, but I think Corsairs are very cool.Favorite aviation-related activity? Any aviation activity where I get to spend time with my aviation friends is my favorite one; it can be an airshow or a conference or flying trips with friends.

Advice for students?

Aviation has smaller communities within itself, and finding your own community within that larger industry can be very helpful for friendship and support during training.

[email protected]