Transport: Flying Down to Rio

Down to a perfect landing at Natal, Brazil one afternoon last week slid a tiny, single-motored De Haviland-Gypsy biplane. Out of ‘it, her sharp little face bright with joy, jumped a slim, 25-year-old girl who had just become the first woman to make a solo flight across the South Atlantic.* Hustling off for a cup of tea she said: “I’ll fly on to Rio de Janeiro tomorrow.”

The joyous pilot was a onetime New Zealand music student named Jean Batten. Abandoning her studies in London, she acquired a plane which once belonged to Edward of Wales, set out on a career of distance flying. On England-Australia flights she cracked-up twice, finally made it in 1934. Year later she flew back in record time, became the first woman to make the round trip solo. Last week she again took off from England, this time for a series of swift hops to Thies in Senegal, finally on to Natal for a flawless crossing in the record time of 13 hr. 15 min., despite bad weather.

Next day when she buzzed off toward Rio, her luck ran out. Missing her way over the jungle, she bogged down for the night with a leaking fuel tank in a swamp 60 mi. from Rio.

*OnIy other woman to fly the South Atlantic: Mrs. Charles Augustus Lindbergh, with her husband in 1933.