Women have been flying planes ever since there have been planes to fly, but, with a few notable exceptions, they have not been visible or well known. Tenacious, determined and sometimes fearless, Kathy Mexted shares the stories of ten extraordinary Australian women compelled to take to the skies. You will meet trailblazers like Nancy Bird Walton, Deborah Wardley, who was told by Ansett that women couldn't be pilots, and Gaby Kennard, the first Australian woman to fly solo around the world. Others are perhaps less known, but piloting Spitfires, Tiger Moths, fire bombers and RAAF jets, their stories are just as extraordinary. Packed with drama, adventure and sometimes heartbreak, this riveting book is a salute to those women who refused to keep their feet on the ground. As a magazine writer, Kathy knows how to quickly draw in her reader and the book is filled with engagingly told stories of inspirational women Each chapter focuses on an individual stereotype-busting pilot and tells her story Selection includes RAAF flyers, commercial pilots, solo round-theworld adventurers, crop dusters and fire bombers Includes aviation trailblazers: only Australian woman to deliver aircraft in WWII (Gething); first Australian woman to fly commercially in PNG (Toole); first Australian woman to fly solo around the world (Kennard) Black-and-white photos of each pilot included throughout, plus a colour picture section

Find out how a pilot was instructed in flying a Battle of Britain fighter, using the original Pilot's Notes for the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane, as well as Air Ministry flying notes on captured Messerschmitt Bf 109s. See how each compares, view their cockpits and learn how they fly. All three aircraft handled superbly, and the Pilot's Notes help give an idea of what it was like to fl y in a real Second World War fighter aircraft. The aircraft were designed and first flew within months of each other, and all served throughout the war. More than 300 pilots on the Eastern Front shot down over 100 Soviet aircraft, each using Messerschmitt Bf 109s, while British aces in the Spitfire and Hurricane included Douglas Bader, Roland Beaumont, Neville Duke and Richard Hillary.