Scotswoman Winnie Drinkwater was not solely the world’s first lady airline pilot however was additionally Scotland’s first lady to be a licensed plane engineer. Her achievements within the fledging aviation trade are much more exceptional since she made vital inroads in a area with only a few ladies. On the a centesimal anniversary of her start, Ian Brown, Assistant Curator of Aviation, introduces this exceptional Scottish aviation pioneer
At 04:30 on 11 April 1913, at Waterfoot Home, Busby, East Renfrewshire, Emma Drinkwater gave start to a daughter, Winifred Joyce. Emma’s husband, Albert Francis Drinkwater was a supervisor with the British Oxygen Firm (BOC) and it seems that his love of engineering was transferred to his daughter Winifred, or ‘Winnie’.
On the age of seventeen, Winnie Drinkwater began taking flying classes on the Scottish Flying Membership at Renfrew Airport. She first flew in a de Havilland DH60G Moth for half-hour on 2 June 1930 receiving an illustration of the controls. She made many extra flights all through June and July earlier than going solo in DH Moth registration G-ABAL on 11 July 1930, and receiving her pilot’s licence, quantity 2850, referred to as an ‘A’ licence. Lots of her flights while studying to fly had been underneath the instruction of John C Houston, the Chief Teacher on the Scottish Flying Membership. He described Winnie as certainly one of his most completed pupils.
Following this, Winnie studied for her engineering licence, which she obtained in 1932 on the age of 19, though formally the minimal age to qualify for the plane engineer licence was 21. Winnie thus grew to become Scotland’s first lady to be a licensed plane engineer.
Concurrently, Winnie was additionally learning for her business pilot’s licence, referred to as a ‘B’ licence, which she accomplished in Moth G-EBTD on 9 Might 1932 at Lympne Airport in Kent. On 1 March 1933, Winnie began work as a business airline pilot and engineer with Midland and Scottish Air Ferries, primarily based at Renfrew Airport. The airline was first registered on 10 March 1932 in Edinburgh however didn’t begin scheduled providers till 18 April 1933. Thus, Winnie joined the airline in its very early days and on 8 April 1933 certified (or ‘had her licence endorsed’) to fly the de Havilland DH83 Fox Moth.
Her first income flight for the airline was on 16 April, two days earlier than the beginning of scheduled providers, when she gave joyriding flights for passengers at Prestwick in Fox Moth, registration G-ACCT. Winnie thus grew to become the world’s first lady to be a business airline pilot, an enormous achievement for a younger Scot from a small village in rural Renfrewshire. See a movie that includes Winnie Drinkwater, taken in 1933 of preparations for a flight to Eire by Midland & Scottish Air Ferries from Renfrew Airport.
Winnie started flying scheduled providers with a flight from Renfrew to Campbeltown on 27 April 1933, flying Fox Moth G-ACBZ. The flight lasted 1 hour 35 minutes, and was the start of many scheduled and constitution flights that Winnie made. To start with, she was paid £3 10s per week for flying, whereas the boys pilots had been paid £4. Her father inspired her to talk to John Sword, the founder and Director of the airline, to ask for the total charge. John agreed to her request and from then on she was paid on the identical charge as the boys pilots. That is significantly far-sighted taking into consideration that this was 1933 and the Equal Pay Act didn’t change into regulation within the UK till 1970, some 37 years later!
Considered one of her most well-known flights happened in Fox Moth G-ACCT, the identical plane she made her first business flight in. This flight, on 25 October 1933, was from Renfrew to Inverness with a journalist and photographer from the Each day File newspaper. The next day the paper recorded the rationale for the flight:
It has been steered in some quarters that the Authorities ought to undertake an investigation of the recurring accounts of the existence of a ‘monster’ in Loch Ness. Yesterday the Each day File, in view of the truth that some individuals have taken the ‘monster’ significantly, despatched a Midland and Scottish Air Ferries ‘aircraft with our particular ‘monster’ consultant aboard to go looking all the 24 miles stretch of the loch. A radical survey was made out of the air of the intensive habitat of the mysterious ‘factor’ which is thrilling conjecture and controversy all through the British Isles.
Regardless of the sunshine which it’s said usually brings the monster to the floor, no hint of something uncommon was noticed …
“He isn’t a really gallant monster,” writes our ‘monster professional’, in any other case he would have come to the floor and paid his respects to a really charming woman who accompanied me in my search. She was Miss Winnie Drinkwater, who piloted the Midland and Scottish Air Ferries Ltd ‘Fox Moth’ through which a photographer and I made the journey to Loch Ness. “One of many pilots at Renfrew requested me what I used to be taking as bait for the monster, and I replied “Winnie!” If the monster will not be vulnerable to her charms, he’s not human!”
On 3 April 1934 Winnie flew Fox Moth G-ACBZ to Clydebank to permit the Each day Mail to take aerial pictures of the Queen Mary liner underneath building in John Brown’s shipyard.
Winnie’s twenty first birthday was held at Renfrew on 11 April 1934 and he or she was offered with a ‘Key to the Kingdom’ by the opposite pilots. By that point she had accrued many admirers, not least due to the appreciable press protection she attracted. One admirer, particularly, was Francis Samuel Brief, one of many administrators of Brief Brothers plane designers and producers. They met in Spring of 1934 when he accompanied a Brief plane being demonstrated at Renfrew. On his second go to to Renfrew on 23 June 1934 he and Winnie introduced their engagement. Following a whirlwind romance, they had been married on 19 July 1934 on the Registry Workplace in Dumfries.
As was regular in these days, when a lady married she stopped working. Her final flight with Midland and Scottish Air Ferries was on 13 July 1934, when she flew a scheduled service in Fox Moth G-ACCU from Renfrew to Campbeltown and again. Her whole flying hours at the moment was 818 hours half-hour.
Though Winnie largely flew de Havilland Fox Moths throughout her profession with Midland and Scottish Air Ferries, she did fly a wide range of differing types together with Avro Cadet (G-ACFX), de Havilland Dragon (G-ACCZ), de Havilland Puss Moth (G-AAWA), de Havilland Tiger Moth (G-ACDY), Percival Gull (G-ACFY), Saro Cloud and Spartan Arrow (G-AAWZ). She additionally flew as a navigator in Airspeed Ferry G-ACBT piloted by Jimmy Rae on 1 June 1933 to Campbeltown.
A de Havilland Gipsy Two engine, from one of many two Airspeed Ferries operated by Midland and Scottish Air Ferries (M&SAF) is on show within the Civil Aviation Hangar on the Nationwide Museum of Flight. A Gipsy III engine, the engine fitted to the higher wing of certainly one of M&SAF Airspeed Ferries, is in storage on the museum however may be seen on a tour of the item retailer held on the final Wednesday of every month from April to October.
As well as, there’s a bust of Winnie Drinkwater on show in Clyde View Park in Renfrew, close to the airport from which she flew. That is the one recognized statue of this exceptional lady, whose transient however distinguished flying profession deserves a lot larger recognition.
