Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Kathy Mexted, NewSouth Publishing, $34.99.
Australian Women Pilots is a practical and carefully researched introduction to a group of women who allowed their dreams to guide them. From pioneering and outback flights to delivering Spitfires or tackling the jungles of Papua New Guinea, this book tells it like it is: 10 Australian women with extraordinary stories.
Mexted has been fascinated by flight, and the act of flying after taking the first steps towards learning to fly as a teenager when her father handed her the controls of his light plane for the first time.
Resolute, single-minded and sometimes intrepid, Mexted shares the feats of trailblazers like the first woman to fly commercially in Australia, Nancy Bird Walton. Kathy also uncovered more details about Deborah Wardley who forged a stellar career in the skies, despite being told by Ansett that women couldn’t be pilots, and Gaby Kennard, the first woman to fly solo around the world.
Others are perhaps less known, but as pilots involved with the Royal Flying Doctor Service, Britain’s Air Transport Auxiliary, the RAAF, aerial agriculture or long-range ferrying, their stories are just as exceptional.
Women served as pilots in the Second World War in the UK, not fighting, but flying planes to where they needed to be before missions. Australian Mardi Gething was one, and Mexted’s vivid telling of her story emphasises how dangerous it was. Barrage balloons and the lack of radio communication were two of the hazards. At 151 centimetres tall, Gething piloted everything from huge bombers to Spitfires.
Alongside this effort, there are stories of women working as pilots in PNG, flying in dreadful conditions and the stories of careers in aerial application (crop-dusting) and firebombing.
While access to ongoing, secure work is a theme that surfaces throughout the book, clear-cut maps and photographs accompany the text.
Packed with drama, adventure and sometimes heartbreak, this fascinating book is a commendable salute to those women who refused to keep their feet on the ground!
