Aviation for Women is the flagship member publication of Women in Aviation International. Articles feature women who have made aviation history, professional development ideas, and current-topic articles.
Issue link: https://afwdigital.epubxp.com/i/619020
A my Johnson is perhaps Great Brit- ain's most well-known aviatrix and the setter of several fight re- cords, including the London to Austra- lia flight that Tracey is honoring. Amy learned to fy as a hobby and earned her license in 1929. That same year, she be- came the frst woman to earn a ground engineer license in the U.K. Her Australia fight launched on May 5, 1930, with Amy fying a DH 60 Gypsy Moth named Jason not after the argo- naut, but after her father's business. She f lew 11,000 m i les to Aust ra l ia, landing on May 24. The airplane from this fight is on display in London's Sci- ence Museum. The following year, Amy flew with another pilot, Jack Humphries, from London to Japan by way of Moscow and Siberia in a Puss Moth named Jason II. In 1932, she married Jim Mollison, also a pilot, who proposed to her eight hours after they frst met. She made her Lon- don to Capetown trip that July in a Puss Moth named Desert Cloud, breaking her new husband's record. Her next signifcant fight was west to the United States, crashing in Connecti- cut. She was rescued and welcomed by New York society and was feted with a ticker tape parade. In 1934, she flew from Britain to India followed in 1936 with her last record-breaking fight, re- gaining her record in a U.K. to South Af- rica fight. In 1940, Amy joined the Air Trans- port Auxiliary (ATA) and worked as a ferry pilot for the Royal Air Force, ris- ing to the rank of First Offcer. She be- came the frst person in the ATA to be killed during active service, however, when an airplane she was ferrying in adverse weather ran out of fuel and she bailed out over the Thames Estuary. Al- though she was spotted alive in the wa- ter, neither she nor her airplane could later be found. Mystery surrounds the crash, even today, with one conspiracy theory being that she was shot down by "friendly fre." —Patricia Luebke A F L I G H T T O PAY T R I B U T E T O Amy Johnson J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 6 Aviation forWomen 29 Tracey Curtis-Taylor with Jane Priston, head of the Herne Bay Project to fnd the wreckage of Amy Johnson's airplane.