Vera von Bissing

Vera von Bissing (1906 to 2002) was a German aerobatic pilot who competed in international meetings in the 1930s. She earned her pilot's licence in 1930 and trained in aerobatics with Gerhard Fieseler. In 1932 she placed sixth at an international aerobatics meeting in Zurich, and in 1936 she flew a Messerschmitt M35 in the aerobatic celebration held alongside the Berlin Olympic Games. She also won the women's event held for the opening of the Rangsdorf airfield. At an airshow in Eastbourne in 1939 her loops and half-rolls were praised as gems of precision. During the Second World War she headed a regional repair yard of the National Socialist Flyers Corps at Eschwege and ran a ferrying centre that moved over a thousand aircraft without an accident, for which she received the War Merit Cross in 1944.