First Female Concorde Pilot

There aren’t many former hairdressers who can claim to have piloted the world famous supersonic aircraft, Concorde. Yet this is what Barbara Harmer did, becoming in 1993 the only woman Concorde pilot.

Famous Australian Aviatrix

Back in 1933, Nancy Bird learned to fly, then bought her own Gypsy Moth and started earning her living ‘barnstorming’ in the Outback. Later, with a larger aircraft, she began ferrying nurses to patients who lived far from any medical facilities, and flying sick and injured people to hospitals….

Author of Famous Poem “High Flight”

“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the sky on laughter-silvered wings”

These first two lines of the poem ‘High Flight’ are famous, and the poem itself is perhaps the best known verse about aviation which exists. But although the poem is well known, many people know very little about its author, John Gillespie Magee.

Story of a Helicopter Record Breaker

In 1997 Jennifer Murray entered the Guinness Book of Records as the first woman to fly round the world in a helicopter. Three years later she became the first woman to pilot a helicopter solo round the world. The following year she entered the London to Sydney Air Race, coming third and setting a new helicopter world speed record. Then in 2007 she and co-pilot Colin Bodill completed the first circumnavigation of the world via both poles. So who is this extraordinary woman?