September 2, 1910 Blanche Stuart Scott became the first American woman to fly solo–sort of. Scott was renowned as the second woman to drive a car across the U.S. when she took flying lessons from aircraft designer Glenn Curtiss. Scott was instructed to taxi the plane which had been fitted with a regulator to keep it on the ground. Yet the regulator failed–or Scott maneuvered to lift off. The plane left the ground and flew forty feet. The Aeronautical Society of America refused to recognize the flight and credited Bessica Raiche with the first flight by a woman on September 16.