Dimensions
132 x 199 x 25mm
" . . . being born was the first, and last, conventional thing she’d ever done in her life."
What else would you expect from Florence ‘Pancho’ Barnes, the clergyman's wife, who had earned her nickname riding a mule through a bloody Mexican revolution disguised as man? Pancho's idea of fun involved taking unsuspecting young women up in her plane, rolling it over and tipping them out - parachute attached - to float terrified down to the ground, where her handsome lover would catch them in his arms.
Pancho was not alone. By the 1920s a whole generation of brave, even reckless, young women were breaking the ties that bound them to home, to convention and to the earth, and taking to the skies to claim their independence. Among them:
Jessie (Chubbie) Miller: the feisty Australian who, without ever having been in a plane, persuaded a man she barely knew to take her on as a mechanic - a skill she didn't possess - for a world-spanning flight that ended in a sensational love triangle and murder trial in Miami.
Hanna Reits: who wanted to be a flying doctor and ended up as a Nazi test pilot. She was the last person to fly into Berlin as Hitler crouched in his bunker and the Russians poured a million tonnes of high explosive onto the city.
Bessie Coleman: the first black woman to fly, who gained her licence in the face of incredible odds.
Lady Mary Heath: the hard drinking Anglo Irish aristocrat, who became a household name but died alone and in poverty.
Amelia Earhart: golden girl of the air, who was forced into taking one flight too many.
They were all stars and this is their story
