Amy Johnson - Early life, Notable Flights, Death, Trivia

Pioneer aviator, born in Hull, NE England, UK. She flew solo from England to Australia (1930), to Japan via Siberia (1931), and to Cape Town (1932), making new records in each case. A pilot in Air Transport Auxiliary in World War 2, she was drowned after bailing out over the Thames estuary.

Amy Johnson (July 1, 1903 – January 5, 1941) was a notable English aviatrix who was born in Kingston upon Hull.

Early life

Amy attended Boulevard School (later Kingston High School), and went on from there to the University of Sheffield, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in economics.

Notable Flights

She achieved worldwide recognition when, in 1930, she became the first woman to fly from England to Australia. She left Croydon on May 5 of that year and landed in Darwin, Australia on May 24 after flying 11,000 miles. Her aircraft for this flight, a De Havilland Gipsy Moth (registration G-AAAH) named Jason, can still be seen in the Science Museum in London.

In July 1931, Johnson and her co-pilot Jack Humphreys became the first pilots to fly from London to Moscow in one day, completing the 1,760-mile journey in approximately 21 hours. From there, they continued across Siberia and on to Tokyo, setting a record time for flying from England to Japan. In 1932, she married famous Scottish pilot Jim Mollison, who had proposed to her only 8 hours after they had met, during a flight together. In July 1932, she set a solo record for the flight from London, England to Cape Town, South Africa in a Puss Moth, breaking her new husband's record. The Mollisons also flew in record time from England to India in 1934 in a De Havilland Comet as part of the England to Australia MacRobertson Air Race. In May 1936, Johnson made her last record-breaking flight, regaining her England to South Africa record in a Percival Gull.

Death

In 1938, Johnson divorced Mollison.

In 1958, a collection of Amy Johnson souvenirs and mementoes were donated by Amy's father to Sewerby Hall.

Trivia

In 1942 a film of Johnson's life, They Flew Alone, was made by director-producer Herbert Wilcox, starring his wife Anna Neagle as Johnson, and Robert Newton as Mollison. Her flight to Australia was the subject of a contemporary popular song composed by Horatio Nicholls and recorded by Harry Bidgood, Jack Hylton, Arthur Lally, Arthur Rosebery and Debroy Somers in June 1930. She was the subject of a £500,000 question on the UK version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, in which the contestant failed by answering that the plane she flew solo from England to Australia was called Pegasus (correct answer is Jason).