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Tracey Curtis-Taylor formed an idea to recreate a flight from Cape Town, South Africa to Goodwood, UK mirroring that of Lady Mary Heath’s. To raise funding for the trip she gained major sponsorship from Boeing Aircraft in the USA and Artemis Fund Managers in the UK. From the beginning, this was to be a solo flight as stated in numerous archived articles on Curtis-Taylor’s website (birdinabiplane.com), her sponsors press releases and the general media. To assist in this flight, her company hired the services of Sam Rutherford, an expert in sport and activity logistics for expeditions and part of the prepare2go group. At some point in the preparations, the team realised that the flight could not be performed solo. The flight took place between November 2013 and February 2014. A considerable amount of media coverage occurred and Ms Curtis-Taylor commenced a round of press, TV, radio and speaking engagements. At the same time, her company started planning another trip from the UK to Australia to take place from October 2015 to January 2016. This trip also started to be mentioned during the various engagements. With very few exceptions, the interviews and media coverage referred to her ‘solo’ Cape Town flight and the upcoming ‘solo’ Australian flight. During this time, Curtis-Taylor’s website continued to refer to the original flight as solo and Curtis-Taylor openly referred to it as ‘solo’ during her speaking engagements of which an example appears in the Wikipedia article. Rutherford had become aware of this coverage but out of professional courtesy, he decided that any denial of the status of the flights should come from Curtis-Taylor. However, he felt his hand was being forced when Curtis-Taylor started to receive awards for flying solo which he felt was simply unfair. He therefore wrote to Curtis-Taylor stating his concerns and asking her to take action. He heard nothing more and as awards and press coverage were increasing, he wrote again and stated he would have to make his feelings known publically unless she did so first. The only obvious reaction can be seen on archived web pages from Curtis-Taylor’s website at the time using the waybackmachine.org website. All previous references to her flying solo were removed. Rutherford then started to explain his position on aviation forums. These communications are all archived on Flyer Forum and Pprune. None state anything other than Curtis-Taylor was not flying solo and her co-pilot was Ewald Gritsch, the owner of the company which build her Stearman. Strangely, throughout the controversy, on TV reports and the documentary, Gritsch can be seen in the front cockpit of the aircraft yet this fact was never raised by observers at the time. As Rutherford’s accusations became more public, Curtis-Taylor made the first of four statements on her website, the essence of which was that she had never stated she flew ‘solo’ but that she was the ‘sole’ pilot. This caused a furore in the aviation world because there is no such definition of ‘sole’ pilot and the majority of people who had followed the story from the beginning had believed the flight to be solo. When they revisited archived material, the general view was that there had been a determined effort to deceive. Presently, there are a number of statements on the Curtis-Taylor site. The current situation is that Curtis-Taylor states she did not fly solo for at least 90% of the time she was in the aircraft. She further states that 80% of the time, she flew with Ewald Gritsch. She maintains, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, that this has been her position from the outset. In Ewald Gritsch’s statement, he agrees he was in the front-cockpit but states the aircraft is flown from the rear. This is incorrect. The aircraft is a trainer and since its launch in the 1940’s, it has always been possible to fly the aircraft from either cockpit. Curtis-Taylor suggests that the accusations against her are ‘anti-feminist’ and untrue. She further suggests that ‘she could have done more to correct misleading reports that made liberal use of the phrase “flying solo”.’ The obvious question is why didn’t she do this with the hundreds (literally) of articles from her sponsors, the press, TV media and her own website? I am not Sam Rutherford, I neither know him or have met him. I have no link to anyone involved in this issue. I am however, a pilot who has flown his first solo, first solo cross country, first solo night flight, first solo instrument flight and many first solo’s on complex types. Like other pilots, while I don’t wear the achievements on my sleeve, they mean a lot to me and I am intensely irritated that someone should attempt to pull the wool over the public’s eyes and be rewarded for it. As Rutherford has always stated, it’s just not fair. I now leave others to decide if the Wikipedia page on Tracey Curtis-Taylor is accurate.Veritasaviator (talk) 17:36, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

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My name is Sam Rutherford. I was there throughout, and everything posted by Veritasaviator is correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.225.75.202 (talk) 18:14, 22 December 2016 (UTC) My name is Peter Gibson. I am very aware of Sam Rutherford's reputation in the flying community and I support him 100% on his comment above. I would also say that the videos referred to show Tracey Curtis Taylor clearly claiming (on two occasions) to have flown solo. It is a disgrace that this is not mentioned on her Wikipedia page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.18.205.58 (talk) 16:37, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

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A British aviator has touched down in Sydney, completing her 21,000km solo flight from England in a vintage open cockpit biplane.

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But a certain person seems hell-bent on attracting the attention of the McWhirter Bros....

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Anyone spotted her aviating.

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