Book gives wings to tale

A HERO of Aussie aviation almost forgotten in her homeland is the focus of a new book by writer Chrystopher J. Spicer (above).

A HERO of Australian aviation who is almost forgotten in her homeland is the subject of a new book by Cairns writer Chrystopher J. Spicer.

Jessie “Chubbie” Miller was an adventurous spirit and a woman ahead of her time when she left Australia for England in the 1920s.

She was the first woman to fly from England to Australia, co-piloting an Avro Avian with friend Bill Lancaster — also becoming the first woman to fly across the Equator.

It was one of the longest flights made in such a small aircraft.

Although overtaken en route by Bert Hinkler in another Avian, when bad weather forced them down in Sumatra, they were still given a hero’s welcome on arrival in Darwin on March 19, 1928 and on their subsequent around Australia.

Jessie went on to become the first woman to hold the unaccompanied solo transcontinental speed record across the US in both directions; fly solo from the US east coast to Cuba; pilot a plane from England to West Africa and gain a Canadian commercial pilot’s licence.

“It is an amazing story,” says Spicer, a teacher of creative tour writing at James Cook University, who first heard about the pioneering aviatrix while researching an earlier book he wrote about Hollywood legend Clark Gable.

“I was in this small town in Ohio doing research on the book when someone said ‘have you ever heard about the Australian woman who landed in a field outside town?’ It was 1929 and they were only just getting used to planes, let alone having a woman with an Australian accent land in a field.

“I started to track that story down and found out more about Jessie Miller’s life.”

Spicer gathered enough material to include her in his next book, Great Australian World Firsts: The Things We Made, The Things We Did.

“After doing a bit more research, I decided there was enough in it for a book, but couldn’t get an Australian publisher interested, which I thought was strange because it was a great Australian story.”

Better known in the United States than at home, Jessie’s tale is now told by American publisher McFarland in The Flying Adventures of Jessie Keith “Chubbie” Miller: The Southern Hemisphere’s First International Aviatrix, which will be launched soon.

Jessie later became embroiled in a murder trial in the US in which Bill was accused of shooting American writer Haden Clarke, who was living with the pair. He was acquitted, but died in 1933 while attempting a speed record between England and South Africa. Jessie died in 1972. For more details on the book, email chrystopher.spicer@jcu.edu.au