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  In 2015, Tracey took on the challenge of flying her Boeing Stearman from the UK to Australia. This was in honour of Amy Johnson and her epic solo flight which astounded the world.

In 1930, with less than a hundred hours in her logbook, Amy Johnson set off to Australia in an attempt to break the world record of fifteen days. She left Croydon with just three people to wave her off, had several crash landings en route, during a violent sandstorm in the Iraq Desert, again in India, and her worst, in heavy monsoon rain in Rangoon. Amy flew on through volcanic ash clouds and thunderstorms over the Indonesian islands and finally crossed the Timor Sea to Darwin to become the first woman to fly to Australia and hundreds of thousands of people were there to meet her. It is one of the most brilliant solo achievements in history. Amy was feted around the world and tragically lost her life ten years later flying for the Air Transport Auxiliary in 1941.
 
   
 

 
 

The two aviators - Tracey with a photograph of Amy Johnson

 
     
  Tracey's expedition took just over three months with 65 stops through 23 countries, covering a distance of 14,600 miles. It was not possible to fly Amy's route through the Middle East because of the current conflict, so a diversion was made over Israeli airspace into Jordan and then Saudi Arabia before picking up the track again in Pakistan. Tracey was supported by Ewald Gritsch from 3G Classic Aviation, a Pilatus PC-6 aircraft with a pilot and cameraman.

All of Tracey's flights are tributes to the many courageous pioneering aviators of the 1920's and 30's who prepared the way for modern air travel, some of whom are mentioned below.
 
 

 

 

 

Jean Batten was a New Zealand aviator. She became the best-known New Zealander of the 1930s by making a number of record-breaking solo flights across the world. She made the first-ever solo flight from England to New Zealand in 1936.  

 

  Beryl Markham was a British-born Kenyan aviator, adventurer, racehorse trainer and author. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. She wrote about her adventures in her memoir, West with the Night.  
 

 

 


Alan Cobham on his expedition across Africa in 1925


Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St Louis, 1927


Amelia Earhart, the first
female aviator to fly solo
across the Atlantic
Ocean, 1932.