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Michael Gibbs 1 day ago
The Boeing Stearman is a trainer aircraft with dual controls. Have the dual controls in the front cockpit of Ms Curtis-Taylor aircraft been removed?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing-Stearman_Model_75
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Mr Dog 1 day ago
"She admits she could have done more to correct misleading reports that made liberal use of the phrase 'flying solo'."
This is, surely, an admission to being somewhat economical with the truth. Having said that, Mr Rutherford does sound something of a cad.
Rupert Blackham 1 day ago
Tracey, please tell us,
How many legs on the Cape Town to Goodwood flight did you fly solo ?
(Solo being defined as you, and you alone, in the Stearman)
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Saga Noren 2 days ago
Sheer spite on the part of the awful little spoiled brat that is the incompetent Rutherford and the disgusting women-fearing bully that is Barry Tempest. Tracy did an amazing and inspiring flight. She's got a team who were inadequate in their failure to overcome press misrepresentation (as in the Times earlier this week). SHE did all the flying. Chapeau, Tracy.
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Rupert Blackham 1 day ago
@Saga Noren
Then why did both the Light Aircraft Association and the Honourable Company of Air Pilots rescind/ withdraw their awards if she was so amazing and inspiring (and solo !) ?
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Peter Dawe 1 day ago
@Saga Noren Solo means unaccompanied, alone.
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Ann Lyon 1 day ago
@Saga Noren Flying solo, that is, alone, is a very different business from having someone with you who can act as a lookout, help with the navigation (if not do it) and chat to you over the intercom so you don't feel lonely.
Please read Sir Francis Chichester's book The Lonely Sea and the Sky to find out what the pioneer solo flyers of the 1920s and 1930s had to cope with. In order to fly from New Zealand to Australia, Chichester had to invent 'aim-off' navigation. Having turned his Gipsy Moth aircraft into a seaplane, he had nothing but trouble with the secondhand floats he had used, and at one point was stranded on a small island making repairs for so long that the nautical almanac he needed to work out his sextant sights ran out and he had to make up his own (fortunately, Chichester was a formidable mathematician).
And despite what Ms Curtis-Taylor claims, the male flyers were just as much celebrities as Amy Johnson.
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Iain Chapman 2 days ago
She obviously hasn't a clue what piloting an aeroplane alone means.
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St Ranger 1 day ago
@Iain Chapman she did indeed pilot the aircraft alone as there are no other controls, what she did not do is fly solo.
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RDL 1 day ago
@St Ranger the Stearman has dual controls in both cockpits, the instructor or more experienced pilot would normally sit in the front seat and the student in the rear seat so either person can fly the aircraft.