"Smith was the daughter of sharecroppers, born in Lumberton, N.C., who watched the airplanes at the local municipal airport and dreamed of flying. But she was pushed into a safe career as a teacher instead. It wasn’t until her four children were grown and she retired that she decided to give her dream another go."

Smith was the youngest of three children and grew up in a loving and sheltered environment. Her mother was African American and her father was of mixed ethnicity. Her family was very religious and attended church services on a regular basis. Smith's interest in aviation began when she was a child when she took an interest in barnstorming and wing-walking exhibitions in Lumberton.

Smith graduated from Redstone Academy in 1934 as the valedictorian of her class. She studied at Barber Scotia Junior College in Concord, North Carolina and then attended Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina where she graduated with a major in social studies and a minor in mathematics. Smith earned a scholarship to the City College of New York where she earned a Master of Science degree in 1964.

In 1967, Smith went to the LaGuardia Airport to take her first lesson in a single-engine airplane. She then studied at an airport in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Smith became a licensed pilot, instrument rated which means that she was allowed to fly during inclement weather, and ground instructor.

Career
After receiving her M.S. from the City College of New York, Smith worked as a teacher for two years in North Carolina. After marrying Edward D. Smith, Ida continued to teach in Queens, New York. She taught in the New York City public schools for many years before enrolling in her first flying lesson at the age of fifty.[4][5]

After becoming a licensed pilot in 1967, Smith founded the Ida Van Smith Flight Clubs to introduce children to careers in aviation and aerospace.[4][5][6][7] Adults were allowed into the program by special request. She taught her students using a stationary airplane instrument panel in her living room. Her program was then expanded into public schools and started an introductory aviation course for adults at York College.[4]

Volunteers from varying areas in aviation gave her classes tours of airplanes and airports.[7] They also took her students flying and give lectures and demonstrations appropriate to each age group. Children in the program along with their parents fly in small airplanes, seaplanes, and helicopters.

They visited aerospace museums and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) installations. Students in the program learned the controls, functions of the instruments, and what makes a plane fly by sitting in Smith's own Cessna 172 cockpit.[4] Students also got to meet airline pilots, flight attendants, air traffic controllers, meteorologists, aircraft mechanics and others whose jobs pertain to the aviation industry.

At first, she used her personal funds to establish her flight clubs, but then she received funding from corporate and private donations and volunteer efforts. Ida Van Smith headed eleven Flight Clubs located in her home town of Lumberton in North Carolina, New York, Texas, and St. Lucia but there would eventually be more than 20 clubs across the United States.[2][4]

Photographs and story lines of Smith's appear in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum with the Tuskegee Airmen's Black Wings in The Pentagon and in the International Women's Air and Space Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.

In 1978-79, the FAA funded Smith's aviation career programs for three high schools in New York and New Jersey. Later on, these programs were adopted by the FAA.

Smith designed an aviation-oriented coloring book for children titled "Come Fly With Me". she produced and hosted a cable television show on aviation.[4] She also produced and published five booklets titled, The Ida Van Smith Flight Clubs, Inc. on the history of her flight clubs. She spoke about aviation at schools, churches and museums and she also wrote a newspaper column called "Come Fly with Me."

Ida Van Smith was a member of Tuskegee Airman's Black Wings, Negro Airman International, and the Ninety-Nines.[4]

Ida retired from teaching in 1977 but remained active with her own local TV show and involvement in associations including the Ninety-Nines (Amelia Earhart and the Air Zoo’s co-founder, Sue Parish, were also members!).
In 1984, Ida was the first Black woman inducted into the International Forest of Friendship. She later sponsored Bessie Coleman and Janet Harmon Bragg’s inductions.

Ida Van Smith died in her hometown on March 13, 2003.[1]

Awards and honors
1978: World Aerospace Education Organization Award from the International Women's Conference.[3]
1979: Bishop Wright Air Industry Award.[3]
1984: first African-American woman to be inducted into the International Forest of Friendship.[3]
1997, included in National Air and Space Museum's exhibit "Women in Flight".[3]
Award for Achievement, Ninety-Nines'[3]
....
Sources: Wikipedia; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, -NYPL- Ida Van Smith collection 1971-1990; National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
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A Legacy of Flight
Aerospace Engineering Student Follows in Footsteps of Great-Grandmother, Black Female Aviation Pioneer

By Karen Shih ’09 / Maryland Today/University of Maryland - February 03, 2025

This is an article about one of Ida's great grandchildren, Toni Paylor.

Growing up, Toni Paylor ’27 didn’t pick famous African American activists like Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass for her Black History Month posters.

She had her own Smithsonian-worthy ancestor to highlight: her great-grandmother, Ida Van Smith, an aviation pioneer who learned to fly at age 50 and founded more than 20 flight clubs for underprivileged children across the United States in the 1970s.

“I’m so proud that she’s part of me and my family,” said Paylor. “People in my age group don’t know about her, and I wanted to bring light to that.”

Now, four decades after her great-grandmother became the first Black woman inducted into the International Forest of Friendship, a memorial to notable aviators, Paylor is honoring Smith’s legacy by pursuing a degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland and forging her own path in an industry that remains overwhelmingly white and male.

Smith was the daughter of sharecroppers, born in Lumberton, N.C., who watched the airplanes at the local municipal airport and dreamed of flying. But she was pushed into a safe career as a teacher instead. It wasn’t until her four children were grown and she retired that she decided to give her dream another go.

It wasn’t easy—she was turned away at flight schools, but her attitude was, “Nobody can stop me,” said Vandaliah Aderholt, Paylor’s mom, Smith’s granddaughter and an assistant director in University Human Resources. “If you tell me no, I’m going to the next door and the next door until I get my ‘yes.’”

Eventually she did, and she earned a pilot’s license and instructor rating—allowing her to not only fly small aircraft, but teach aviation classes. Then she founded the Ida Van Smith Flight Clubs to give kids ages 13-19, especially Black teens, an introduction to aeronautics. With chapters from New York to Texas, she educated thousands by taking them flying, introducing them to airline personnel and bussing them to museums. She died in 2003 at age 86.

“She let them know they could be anything they wanted to be,” said Aderholt.

That spirit motivates Paylor today. While she’s always been good at math, some other technical aspects of engineering have posed a challenge during her first year and a half. But thanks to the support of the A. James Clark Scholars Program, the Center for Minorities in Science and Engineering and the Black Engineers Society, she’s been able to succeed not only in classes, but also conduct research.

“Freshman year, sometimes I would be scared to ask questions,” she said. “I felt like I wasn’t just representing myself, but also Black people, Black women in STEM. I didn’t want to be seen as too loud, too passionate. But I’ve realized I’m supposed to be here, and I shouldn’t be ashamed to speak up.”

One of her favorite moments at UMD so far was speaking to NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps M.S. ’94, Ph.D. ’00 while the alumna was aboard the International Space Station.

“It was mind-blowing, asking questions of her while she was up there in space,” said Paylor, who often sees Epps’ signed photo up in the CMSE offices. “Knowing she was in these same chairs, in these same classes, it definitely gives me a push.”

Now, Paylor hopes to build a sisterhood for fellow Black women at UMD, emulating Smith, who rubbed shoulders with pioneers like Mae Jemison, the first Black woman in space, and was a member of the Ninety-Nines, the international organization of women pilots, including Amelia Earhart. Paylor has restarted the local chapter of the National Council of Negro Women, an organization dedicated to service, and already has more than 100 people signed up on her email list. She’s planning to start meetings this semester.

“I want to create a space where people feel like they belong,” said Paylor, who eventually hopes to restart the Ida Van Smith Flight Clubs as well.

This is one of a series of Maryland Today features during Black History Month celebrating Terp faculty, staff, students and alums