A German WWII test pilot who has been called
"The Century’s Greatest Pilot"
"The fastest and most dangerous plane, she tested was the top secret German rocket plane, after three male pilots had died in their attempts. First she flew the prototype without the motor, the Me 163A. Then she flew the militarized version, the Me 163B, Komet. [This experimental interceptor, in a minute and a half after takeoff climbed at a 65-degree angle to 30,000 feet. It traveled 500 mph -- the fastest any human had ever gone.] Reitsch launched behind a tow plane at Regensburg, and the takeoff gear failed to drop away from her aircraft. The little fighter was supposed to land on a tough skid in its belly, but now the heavy axle with outsized wheels hung canted to one side beneath the fuselage. The plane vibrated alarmingly and was very heavy on the controls. Flares from the airfield alerted Reitsch that she indeed had an emergency. Radios of the time were heavy, unreliable devices, and Reitsch couldn't get hers to work. She had no way of contacting either the ground or the towplane. With no communications, the despairing tow plane pilot grimly pulled her up to 3,000 meters altitude, and Reitsch cut loose.
Built with swept wings for a rocket-blast climb to altitude and a near-sonic glide attack on Allied bomber formations, the Komet was fast. With its heavy landing gear still attached, it was even faster. It dropped like an anvil with wings. "Bale out?" Unthinkable. The Me163 was too new, too advanced for such a waste. So at great risk and without the foggiest guess about how the landing gear had configured itself in the airstream, Reitsch attempted a landing. What balls! Hanna managed to land it in a plowed field, but the plane flipped. In the sliding, smashing, grinding mass of twisting, tearing metal and breaking glass, Reitsch's face catapulted into the instrument panel. Finally, everything stopped. Thank God there was no fuel aboard, for the little Komet surely would have burned and exploded. Astounded to be alive and upright in the wreckage, Reitsch tried to get out. The canopy was jammed, so all she could do now would be wait for the rescue crew to arrive.
She killed time until the ambulance and fire truck could get to her by sketching and labeling the details of her accident. Shifting the clipboard to avoid more blood splashes from her face, she noticed a rubbery object in her lap and picked it up. It was her nose. At the hospital, doctors discovered that Reitsch had fractured her skull in six places. She'd smashed the bones of her detached nose irretrievably and displaced her upper jawbone. She'd broken several vertebrae and bruised her brain severely. She nearly died. It took Regensburg Surgeon Doctor Bodewig five months of plastic surgery and neurosurgery to repair the Führer's most valuable aviator. It took Reitsch's own iron will five more months to rip her free of physical weakness and mental despair. As he awarded Reitsch the Iron Cross of the Knight's Cross, First Class, the only woman to receive this medal, Adolf Hitler himself forbade her ever again to attempt such a foolhardy feat."
http://greyfalcon.us/Hanna%20Reitsch.htm
