LADY HEATH

Shannon News, 2 November 1928, Page 1

LADY HEATH

CIVIL AVIATION TOR WOMEN PILOTS. Wearing a neat brown costume, with a leopardrskin coat and flying helmet, Lady Heath, the British airwoman, alighted at the London air station at noon on July 27, seated at the controls of a big 15-seater air liner of the Royal Dutch Air Line, which she h::d piloted from Amsterdam. . By 'thus taking charge of a powerful air express. on one of its scheduled nights she is, it is, claimed, the first woman in the world to act as a regular airway pilot. To prove her contention that women can fly large high-powered airplanes, just as well as smali, low-powered light planes, Lady Heath has taken a temporary engagement as a Continental air-line pilot with the Dutch company. Accompanying her in the cockpit, according to the regulations requiring a working crew of two in big Continental 1 planes, was one of the men pilots of J the line. "T find such a big air liner as this actually easier to fly than a light airplane,'* declared Lady Heath on alighting. ''These big machines have such an inherent stability when in the air that they almost fly themselves. lam now more confident than ever that there is a big future in civil aviation for women pilots. I am gaining experience en these large passenger planes because J have been engaged to act as second pilot on a big Fokkcr air liner, driven by three British Armstrong-Siddeley engines, which is to fly 20,000 miles from Amsterdam to B'atnvia and buck thi,s Autumn. It will, inaugurate a regular trans-Cont'nonial aii-niail service between Holland, and - the Dutch i East Indies, with connections to London and all parts of Europe.'' Lady Heath took her place again at tho controls of onftj of the Dutch air liners on a return flight from London ■to Amsterdam. Among her 15 passengers were 11 women.