Advances in aviation

Women in aviationImages with this text
A woman painting a Spitfire during the Second World War.
Women in aviation: 'Men do not believe us capable'
An important feature of aviation in the period leading up to the Second World War was a kind of 'aerial adventurism' starring record-breaking pilots who went on to become international celebrities. Thus, in 1927 in the United States Charles Lindbergh was feted as a hero after becoming the first person to fly non-stop between New York and Paris. Some of these pilots were simply seeking fame or adventure, but daring flights also showed that aeroplanes were an increasingly practical means of transport and pioneered routes that would eventually be used by regular airline services.
A surprising number of women took part in this movement. Pilots such as Amelia Earhart, Jean Batten and Amy Johnson completed noteworthy intercontinental flights and became major celebrities. Women were also involved in the active club flying movement. When the Second World War broke out many served with the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) and gained respect for flying all kinds of service aircraft despite little special training.
The Second World War brought a large-scale (albeit temporary) movement of women into aircraft manufacture. There had already been a gradual move of women into the scientific side of aviation before the First World War, driven largely by the need for mathematicians to help with aircraft development. This trend continued in the interwar years and during the Cold War.
In spite of these breakthroughs, the spread of women into the most visible role in professional aviation - piloting airliners - was to be slow.
Images with this text:
Male and female students studying aircraft maintenance at the Curtiss ground school during the early 1930s, New York City.
Amy Johnson
Amy Johnson learned to fly in 1928 at Stag Lane Aerodrome, near Edgware, where de Havilland Moths were built. Unusually, she also gained a ground engineer's licence - the first woman to do so in Britain.
Johnson was determined to make her mark in aviation. In the age of Empire, the 10,000-mile solo flight to Australia seemed the obvious choice and she wanted to be the first woman to make this journey. She set about writing innumerable letters seeking financial support. Eventually Lord Wakefield, head of the Wakefield-Castrol oil company and a great patron of aviation, agreed to share half the cost of a second-hand aircraft with the Johnson family. She bought a de Havilland Gipsy Moth and named it 'Jason', after the brand name of the kippers produced by her family's firm in Hull.
In May 1930 Johnson set out. She had underestimated the stress and difficulty of long-distance flying alone. She damaged the aircraft twice on landing, in India and Burma, and in tropical storms was 'never so frightened in my life'. But she pressed on and, landing in Darwin after nineteen-and-a-half days of flying, found she had become the most famous aviation heroine in Britain.
Her flying career continued through the 1930s. In 1941 she disappeared in bad weather while on a wartime aircraft delivery flight. Her loss remained a mystery but it is now thought she was mistakenly shot down by British anti-aircraft fire over the Thames.
Images with this text:
Amy Johnson with her Gipsy Moth 'Jason', shortly before the flight to Australia.
Amy Johnson's route to Australia, May 1930. The route goes through many cities, avoiding the sea. Vienna, Baghdad, Karachi, Calcutta and Singapore just to mention a few.
Amy Johnson's Gipsy Moth 'Jason' being refuelled at Karachi during her 1930 solo flight to Australia.
A popular signed photographic portrait of Amy after her flight. 'There is nothing more wonderful and thrilling, than going up into . . . the skies in a tiny plane . . . at peace with everyone, and exactly free to do what you want and go where you will.'
The 'ticker-tape welcome' in New York for Amy Mollison (née Johnson) and her husband Jim Mollison. Their 1933 flight from the Britain to the United States was the first non-stop flight from east to west, against the prevailing wind.
President Roosevelt greets Amy Mollison (née Johnson) and her husband Jim Mollison, after their 1933 crossing of the Atlantic, showing the esteem in which the early aerial adventurers were held. Jim Mollison shows the injuries he received when they crash-landed, out of fuel, at Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Jean Batten
Jean Batten grew up in New Zealand. Aged 17 she was inspired by Charles Lindbergh's 1927 solo transatlantic flight and abandoned ballet and piano studies to become a full-time pilot. In 1930 she travelled to London with her mother, Ellen, and took lessons at Stag Lane where Amy Johnson had learned to fly shortly before. Her instructor described Batten as 'a remarkable woman with great vision who would one day be famous', while another contemporary called her 'single-minded, almost to the point of obsession, with flying'. In all her exploits she showed extraordinary physical endurance and immensely accurate navigation although she remained a mysterious figure - aloof, lonely and, according to a contemporary, too much under the smothering influence of her 'Machiavellian' mother. However, together they managed and promoted her career as an international flying celebrity, pursuing sponsors and funding Jean's flying in a single-minded (some said unscrupulous) way.
In 1934 Batten flew to Australia, knocking more than four days off Amy Johnson's time and setting a new record, although one writer argued the new journey time was due in part to improvements in airfields and ground services.
The following year, in her new Percival Gull, she took an outright record, crossing the south Atlantic from Dakar to Port Natal in Brazil in 13 hours and 15 minutes. In 1936 she gained the world record for the fastest flight from Britain to New Zealand and another world record returning from Australia to Britain in just under six days.
Batten was at one time the most celebrated flyer in Britain but she always remained remote. As the airlines began to establish long-range routes and the age of record-breaking faded, she became a recluse and disappeared from public view.
Images with this text:
Photographic portrait of Jean Batten. She took great care of her image, usually arriving at destinations in a clean white flying suit and packing an evening dress in the tiny cockpit to wear at the usual reception party.
Jean Batten. After her 1934 flight to Australia, Jean Batten made a celebratory visit to her native New Zealand, shipping her Gipsy Moth over to fly to civic receptions and celebrations around the country.
Jean Batten after landing at Croydon, 29 April 1935, marking the completion of her return flight from Australia.
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart had entered Columbia University's pre-medical course in 1919 but became obsessed with learning to fly. In 1921 she first flew solo and bought her first aircraft, soon afterwards taking the women's altitude record. She went on to take numerous records. In 1932 she became the first woman to pilot an aircraft across the Atlantic, becoming an international heroine. She was received by the Pope and feted with an ecstatic reception upon her return to New York.
Earhart was thoughtful and serious. She had a natural charisma and, as an early champion of women's rights, lectured widely on her flights in an effort to inspire women to enter aviation.
In July 1937 she set off on an attempt to fly around the world in a specially built Lockheed Electra. She disappeared with navigator Fred Noonan on 2 July after leaving New Guinea. They were heading over the Pacific to their next refuelling base, tiny Howland Island, which is only one mile wide and two miles long. Many bizarre rumours flourished after their disappearance, including that they were captured by the Japanese and held captive for the duration of the war. The likelihood is that they came down in the ocean after running out of fuel while searching for Howland Island.
Images with this text:
Amelia Earhart and fellow flyer Paul Mantz before the 1935 Bendix air race.
Amelia Earhart in front of a Pratt and Whitney engine of the Lockheed Electra she used for her round-the-world flight.
Amelia Earhart inspecting the twin-engined L10 Electra being built at Lockheed's Burbank plant in California for her 1937 round-the-world flight.
Video of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan's last takeoff, from the runway at Lae, New Guinea, heading east to Howland Island. The island was a speck in the ocean - it measured only 1 mile by 2 miles and was about 20 feet high.
Photo album
Not all those women involved with aeronautics became celebrities. These pictures show a few engaged in activities ranging from development, through production, to promotion.
Beatrice Shilling
Beatrice Shilling with her Manx Norton racing motorcycle. A trained engineer, she joined the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE), Farnborough, in 1936 and was famous for devising the carburettor modifications that cured the temporary engine 'cut' which stopped Spitfires catching Messerschmitt 109s in a dive. She continued in the RAE on experimental and development work into the mid-1960s.
Images with this text:
Beatrice Shilling with her Manx Norton racing motorcycle.
Willa Brown
In 1937 Willa Brown (right) was the first black woman in the United States to receive a commercial pilot's rating. She also ran her own flying school in Chicago, where there was an active black aviation movement.
Images with this text:
Willa Brown, 1937.
Betty Huyler Gillies
Betty Huyler Gillies received her pilot's licence in 1929 and worked in sales and flying demonstrations for the Curtiss company.
Images with this text:
Betty Huyler Gillies.
'Pancho' Barnes
Stunt pilot and record-breaker 'Pancho' Barnes and her 'Mystery Ship' in 1930. At one time America's fastest woman flyer, Barnes was the granddaughter of Thaddeus Lowe who pioneered military ballooning during the American Civil War. After the Second World War she ran the 'Happy Bottom Riding Club', also known as 'Pancho's Fly Inn', a favourite haunt of test pilots. Among them was Chuck Yeager, who flew experimental jet and rocket aircraft at the Muroc Air Base in California.
Images with this text:
'Pancho' Barnes, 1930.
Spitfire builders
In spite of early protests from skilled workers about 'dilution', a large proportion of the wartime workforce was made up of women. Here we see women building and painting Spitfires at a Vickers/Supermarine plants during the Second World War.
Images with this text:
Women building Spitfires at a Vickers/Supermarine plant during the Second World War.
Spitfire manufacture. In spite of early protests from skilled workers about 'dilution', a large proportion of the wartime workforce was made up of women as this photo shows.
A woman painting a Spitfire during the Second World War.