Amy Johnson

The flight to Australia was the forerunner of other remarkable long-distance flights.

In July 1931, with Jason II, Amy Johnson became the first pilot to fly from London to Moscow in one day, flying the 1,760 miles in approximately 21 hours. From there she flew across Siberia to Tokyo, which took ten days. This was achieved in record-breaking time, as was the return journey.

In 1932 she broke the record then held by her husband, Jim Mollison, for a solo flight from England to Cape Town, in Desert Cloud. She arrived in Cape Town, South Africa, on the 18th November 1932, cutting 10.5 hours off the previous fastest flight time. Her return journey was also a record.

She also attempted a non-stop flight in 1933 with her husband from England to New York via Newfoundland and Canada. This only failed because of a lack of fuel, less than fifty miles from their destination. The plane, christened Seafarer, crashed at the aerodrome boundary and overturned. Both pilots were injured, but soon recovered in New York.

In 1934 Amy Johnson and her husband also made a record flight to Karachi, in India, in a D.H.88 Comet designed by De Havilland specially for the England to Australia MacRobertson Air Race. However, they then had to withdraw from the race and it was won by another Comet piloted by Charles Scott and Tom Campbell-Black.

In May 1936, a solo flight from England to the Cape and back, in a Percival Gull Six, gave Amy Johnson the opportunity to reclaim her fame as a solo flier. The London to Cape Town record which she had set up in 1932 with a De Havilland Moth had been surpassed by Flight Lieutenant Tommy Rose. Johnson was able to beat this record again, as well as that for the double journey, in the faster Percival Gull machine. This was to be her last long-distance flight.

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