GarboOf TheSkies hits the high notes with solo flight Down Under
Sometimes, we just like to do things on our own. And it’s exactly that self-motivation that saw Jean Batten touch down 86 years ago – and set a new record for long-distance solo travel.
The daring New Zealand aviatrix conquered the perilous Tasman Sea to complete a 1,100-mile hop from Australia – and end a record-breaking solo flight from England to New Zealand.
It marked the end of an exciting – and exhausting – trip that started in Kent 11 days earlier.
Batten took off at 4.20am on October 5,1936. And in spite of the early hour, she was seen off by a sizeable media contingent.
Batten, who qualified as a private pilot in 1930, had already hit the headlines for her successful solo flights from England to Australia in May 1934, and to South America in November 1935 – and the world was keen to see how the solo pilot would fare on this new venture.
She was a woman widely chronicled during the 1930s, with her long-distance travel between Britain and Australasia tallying up more than 14,000 miles and taking her around more than three-fifths of the Earth’s circumference.
She was one of the era’s celebrity aviatrixes whose exploits captured the public imagination.
For this trip, Batten, nicknamed the Garbo Of The Skies, had cleverly installed two extra petrol tanks in her low-winged monoplane, a Percival ( Vega) Gull.
However, in order to reach Australia she still had to land and refuel at numerous locations across Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
She flew day and night, on very little sleep and sometimes in bad weather.
Batten arrived in Darwin after five days and 21 hours – 24 hours faster than the previous record-holder, Jimmy Broadbent, and her new record was front-page news around the world.
But she was determined to go a step further and continued on her way, arriving in Sydney on October 13.
While she had a welcome rest and waited for the weather over the Tasman Sea to improve, some tried to dissuade her from continuing on to New Zealand. But brave – and ever determined – Batten decided to proceed.
Before taking off from Richmond Aerodrome, Sydney, at approximately 6.30am (New Zealand time) on October 16, she declared that no one should look for her if she went down at sea.
Outwardly fearless, she later confessed that she almost “lost her nerve” during this final leg.
To her relief, she finally arrived at Auckland’s Mangere Aerodrome at about 5pm, 10-and-a-half hours after leaving Sydney, and was greeted by a crowd of 6,000.
Batten then set off to tour the country by car and train, admitting that she had had enough of air travel for a while.
She was both physically and mentally exhausted by her odyssey, which had taken a total of 11 days 45 minutes.
The tour was eventually called off in Christchurch and Batten spent much of November resting at Franz Josef Glacier at the government’s expense.
In October 1937 – almost exactly a year later – she made a return flight from Sydney to England. It was her last long-distance flight.
She made it in just five days, 18 hours and 15 minutes, giving her solo records simultaneously in both directions.