Come fly with me

• Called ‘la première aero-chauffeuse du monde,’ Aida de Acosta flew a tiny powered airship to a polo match in Paris in July 1903

• When Jacqueline Cochran—the first woman to fly supersonically—died at 74, in 1980, no other pilot held more aviation records

• A 1930s De Havilland Gypsy Moth cost about £600 (current equivalent £45,000). In the late 1920s, Tatler carried a regular aviation-news column

• Amelia Earhart’s last plane was the type that flew Chamberlain to Munich. Her helmet sold recently for $825,000 (£628,000)

• Aviatrix and Olympic athlete Lady Heath maintained that flying was ‘no harder than dancing the Charleston’

• The first English woman to obtain a flying licence was Hilda Hewlett, in September 1911, aged 47

Markham photographed in 1936, ahead of her eastto-west transAtlantic flight