England's Amelia

Air Classics, Jan 2003 by Hulett, George

CHECKLIST The mystery of Amy Johnson

Adoration surrounded British aviator Amy Johnson throughout most of the 1930s. Arond the world, men and women admired this in a small girl who had flown solo from England to Australia in a small single-engine biplane - a girl with with less than 100 hours flying experience. And yet there were many enigmas ahout her short life - the final one concerning her mysterious death.

Born into an average middle class family, she led the typical life of her generation and had moderite success in education. Nevertheless, in an age when true emancipation was not the norm for women, she proved to be forceful and single-minded in many circumtances. At an early age she fell in love with a man several years her senior and pursued him relentlessly for six long years. Finally he left her. She was distraught Mid turned to aviation as if on the rebound. Now, this hopeless romantic turned her hand to becoming a pilot and ground enigineer - this in an age when only a handful of women could fly and aviation was held to be a male-only domain. Author David Luff meticulously examines her life in Amy Johnson - Enigma in the Sky (Airlife, $24.95), a thoughtful look it a phase of aviation that is growing increasingly remote.

Her aviation successes soon brought her to the public eye and she was feted wherever she went and entered the realms of a Hollywood-like existence with the rich and famous. In 1932, she married the flamboyant aiviator Jim Mollison, also an aviation legend. For six years, they made record-breaking flights together and lived the high life of the 1930s. But Mollison hall a roving eye and a healthy thirst, and the marriage eventually failed in 1938. This was now a period of reflection for Amy, who desperately wanted escape the whirl of a public life yet pined for continued admiration for her flying skills.

When World War Two arrived, Amy was carer to fly to help the war effort. She eventually found a post as pilot in the Air Transport Auxiliary and it was while ferrying a Airspeed Oxford in 1941 that both she anal the aircraft vanished. There have been many theories about her mysterious death, but the author offers a new solution to what actually happened on Amy's final flight. An interesting read.