Flying
In 1923 she took up flying, gaining her pilot's licence at the De Havilland Flying School, probably the second woman since World War I after 'Mrs Atkey', bought a plane, and expressed a determination to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic Ocean. She was regarded as a contemporary role model amongst women, with dark looks, graceful manner, habitually well-gowned and bejeweled appearance. She was renowned for driving her Rolls Royce at great speed, galloping her horses, plus being a familiar sight in her Avro biplane in the skies over South Ayrshire and Wigtownshire. She even participated in an "outside loop," the most dangerous of all stunts in air, with Capt. E.C.D. Herne as her pilot. During this manoeuvre her safety-strap broke but she clung to bracing wires while her body swung outside the plane like a stone twirled on the end of a piece of string. She was one of the first women in Britain to gain her Royal Aero Club pilot’s licence and was later elected to the advisory committee of pilots to the British Empire Air League.
Read more about this topic: Elsie Mackay
Famous quotes containing the word flying:
“Y’know plenty of people, in their right mind, thought they saw things that didn’t exist, y’know, like flying saucers. The light was just right, and the angle and the imagination. Oh boy, if that’s what it is, then this is just an ordinary night. You and I are going to go home and go to sleep and tomorrow when we get up that sun’s gonna shine. Just like yesterday. Good ol’ yesterday.”
—Theodore Simonson. Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.. Steve Andrews (Steven McQueen)
“All those who dwell in the depths find their happiness in being like flying fish for once and playing on the uppermost crests of the waves. What they value most in things is that they have a surface, their “epidermality”Msit venia verbo.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“a flying open of doors, convergence
of magic objects into
feathered hands and crested heads, a prospect
of winter verve, a buildup to abundance.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)