Damn!
Hardly unexpected, but still very sad. I will miss her. I was privileged to be one of the many, many pilots to know her personally and to benefit from her advice and wisdom.
I just checked my copy of Women And Flight, since I was sure she must be in there. Either she isn’t, or else I’m not awake enough to discern ‘Johnson’ in the table of contents. I’ll check again later, but I’m sure there’s an elderly-lady-still-flying-and-managing-an-airport profile in there.
As a female pilot, Broomstick, you might want to pick up this book if you don’t have it already. It’s a little dated now, having been published in 1997, but quite a good read. And a little poignant, now that some of the pilots profiled in it are gone. Vicki Van Meter shot herself later, the Inuit pilot died fairly young, ISTR one pilot was lost over the Amazon, and another died of old age.
I’m glad to hear you knew Ms. Johnson. The aviation community is a small one in terms of the general population, and the percentage of pilots is falling faster than their numbers. Yet few pilots have the privilege of meeting or knowing the Great Ones.