Amy Johnson was a pioneering English pilot who was the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia.
Jacqueline Cochran was an American pilot and business executive. She pioneered women's aviation as one of the most prominent racing pilots of her generation. She set numerous records and was the first woman to break the sound barrier on 18 May 1953. Cochran was the wartime head of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) (1943–1944), which employed about 1000 civilian American women in a non-combat role to ferry planes from factories to port cities. Cochran was later a sponsor of the Mercury 13 women astronaut program.
James Allan Mollison MBE was a Scottish pioneer aviator who, flying solo or with his wife, Amy Johnson, set many records during the rapid development of aviation in the 1930s.
Dame Florence Marjorie Wilcox, known professionally as Anna Neagle, was an English stage and film actress, singer, and dancer.
Sir Norman Bishop Hartnell was a leading British fashion designer, best known for his work for the ladies of the royal family. Hartnell gained the Royal Warrant as Dressmaker to Queen Elizabeth in 1940, and Royal Warrant as Dressmaker to Queen Elizabeth II in 1957. Princess Beatrice also wore a dress designed for Queen Elizabeth II by Hartnell for her wedding in 2020.
Robert Guy Newton was an English actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the more popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys. Known for his hard-living life, he was cited as a role model by the actor Oliver Reed and the Who's drummer Keith Moon.
Jane Gardner Batten, commonly known as Jean Batten, was a New Zealand aviator who made several record-breaking flights – including the first solo flight from England to New Zealand in 1936.
The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) was a civilian women pilots' organization, whose members were United States federal civil service employees. Members of WASP became trained pilots who tested aircraft, ferried aircraft and trained other pilots. Their purpose was to free male pilots for combat roles during World War II. Despite various members of the armed forces being involved in the creation of the program, the WASP and its members had no military standing.
Ferry flying or a positioning flight is the flying of aircraft for the purpose of returning the aircraft to base, delivering it to a customer, moving it from one base of operations to another, or moving it to or from a maintenance facility that includes maintenance, repair, and operations.
The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was a British civilian organisation set up at the start of the Second World War with headquarters at White Waltham Airfield in Berkshire. The ATA ferried new, repaired and damaged military aircraft between factories, assembly plants, transatlantic delivery points, maintenance units (MUs), scrapyards, and active service squadrons and airfields, but not to naval aircraft carriers. It also flew service personnel on urgent duty from one place to another and performed some air ambulance work. Notably, around 10% of its pilots were women, and from 1943 they received equal pay to their male colleagues, a first for the British government.
Betty Gillies was an American aviator, and the first pilot to qualify for the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, later amalgamated into the Women Airforce Service Pilots.
Pauline Mary de Peauly Gower Fahie was a British pilot and writer who established the women's branch of the Air Transport Auxiliary during the Second World War.
Marion Wilberforce was a Scottish aviator and one of the first eight members of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). She flew many planes including Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancaster Bombers, Wellington Bombers and Mosquitos. She rose to become deputy commander of the No. 5 Ferry Pool at Hatfield, and later became commander of the No. 12 Ferry Pool at Cosford, one of only two women pool commanders in the whole ATA.
Early Australian female aviators were generally active since 1927 when it became possible for an Australian woman to hold a pilot's licence and fly within Australia. Women had participated in gliding, or taken a licence overseas, but they had not been permitted to fly a plane under licence within Australia. The first Aero Club in Australia was established in 1915.
Barbara Erickson London was a Women Air-force Service Pilot (WASP) and a member of the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS). She was a ferry pilot – picking up and delivering various military aircraft to and from factories and airbases throughout the United States. She won the Air Medal, and was the only woman awarded one in World War II.
Ferry Pilot is a British short documentary film produced in 1941 about the work of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). Directed by Pat Jackson and produced by Ian Dalrymple the film was the work of the Crown Film Unit and was released at the end of 1941. Originally conceived as a very short five minute film, it was expanded to a running time of over 30 minutes during production.
Gabrielle Ruth Millicent Patterson was a British aviator who worked for the Air Transport Auxiliary. She was Britain's first woman flying instructor.
Veronica May Volkersz was a British aviator and beauty queen. She flew for the RAF's Air Transport Auxiliary in the Second World War and was the first British woman to fly an operational jet fighter when she ferried a Meteor from the Gloster factory to RAF Moreton Valence on 15 September 1945.
Jonathan Ferguson was an Irish electrical technician who worked as a scientific civil servant in the Ministries of Aircraft Production and Supply. During the Second World War, he flew aircraft with the Air Transport Auxiliary. In 1958, he had sex reassignment surgery.
