Margaret Ringenberg | World War II pilot, 87

Margaret Ray Ringenberg, 87, a World War II pilot from Indiana who continued to fly into her 80s, has died.

Miss Ringenberg of Fort Wayne, Ind., died Monday in Oshkosh, where she was attending an Experimental Aircraft Association event. A Winnebago County deputy coroner said she died of natural causes.

Miss Ringenberg ferried military planes across the country during World War II before serving as a flight instructor and competing in numerous air races, including an around-the-world race at age 72.

Her adventures earned her a chapter in Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation.

She got the bug to fly when she was 8 and a barnstorming pilot landed in a field near her family's farm in Indiana. After she graduated from high school, she was resigned to becoming a flight attendant, believing that was the only airplane job open to women.

During the war, flight schools suffered a shortage of students as men were drafted. She was 19 when she flew solo the first time in 1941. Then she joined the Women's Air Force Service Pilots. - AP