FIRST WOMAN FLYER.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 282, 28 November 1925, Page 8

FIRST WOMAN FLYER.

A LADY FROM AUCKLAND. CAPABLE AND ENTERPRISE OX BCSIXESS IXTENT. ''." (By Teicgrn ph.—Special to "Star.") > CHRISTCHURCH, this day. | Xew Zealand is to have its very own lady aviator. Yesterday afternoon Mrs Gladys Sandford, of Auckland, reported to the Wigram airdrome, and to-day she entered upon a course of instruction with the idea of obtaining a pilot's ticket. It will be the first issued to a lady in New Zealand. Imagine a lady of* strikinappearance and laughing' blue eves— that is Mrs. Sandford. She looks capable and enterprising, and she is very serious about her intention.

"I'm not doing it for a joke." she told a reporter: "I'm learning"to fly because it is going to be a commercial proposition. Oh, I admit that there may not be much in the business just at present, but when there is I will be ready for it. If I find that I cannot make it pay in the Dominion, then I will go to America."

Mrs. Sandford ought to succeed ag a flyer. To begin with, she is a motorist of unusual ability. YA*hen she left Auckland it was in a motor car. and she drove it to AVellington in 20h 30m.

"There were five wild women in the car," she said laughingly, "and we averaged over 23 miles an hour. Our time wasn't very far under the record."

"Yes, I ought to be able to fly. I've been mixed up with machinery all mv life. Then my husband is r\ pilot in the Royal Air Force in England, and I am used to the air."

Mrs. Sandford was a nurse with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, and she made her first flight in Egypt. "I'veflown enough already," she said, "to have grown a little White Orpington's,wings, so it really is time I got that ticket."