Celebrating aviation change maker Katherine Sui Fun Cheung

In recognition of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the MAC acknowledges Katherine Sui Fun Cheung (1904-2003). 

Katherine Sui Fun Cheung, born in 1904 as Zhang Ruifen, is recognized as the first female Asian American aviator. She immigrated to the United States in 1921 from Guangzhou, (formerly Canton) China.  

Cheung disregarded conventions and became a pilot and well-known stunt flier in the 1930s. She developed an interest in flying when her father took her to a California airfield to teach her how to drive a car and became fascinated by the planes taking off and landing.  

Years later, after marrying and having two children, she impulsively signed up for flying lessons and after about 12 hours in the air she flew solo. In 1932, she became part of the 1% of licensed American pilots who were women. 

Cheung became a barnstorming pilot, performing spiral dives, acrobatic loops, barrel rolls and flying her open cockpit airplane upside down at county fairs all over California. Impressed by her skills, the Chinese American community raised $2,000 to purchase her a 125-horsepower biplane.  

In 1935, famed female aviator Amelia Earhart invited Cheung to join her Ninety-Nines club, an international organization she founded for women pilots.  

Cheung died in 2003 at age 98. She was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame and the Museum of Flying’s International Women in Aviation Pioneer Hall of Fame.  

Cheung teaches us all that passion can outweigh obstacles. Her humble beginnings and the culture's restrictions around the role of women in the 1930s did not discourage her from doing what she loved to do. She went after her dreams, she mastered her skills, and she became a well-known pilot and stunt flier.  

It is because of her tenacity and abilities that the MAC recognizes Katherine Sui Fun Cheung as an aviation change maker.