AVIATION IN AUSTRALIA

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 132, 2 December 1930, Page 11

AVIATION IN AUSTRALIA

YOUNGEST WOMAN PILOT

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, 20th November. Miss Bcbc Griffiths, who graduated recently at the Goulburn (N.S.W.) Aero Ciub for her pilot's certificate, is only 18, and thus becomes tho youngest woman pilot in Australia, .if not in tho British Empire. She is taking part in tho club's round-Australia air race for women next January, and is very hopeful of carrying off the first prize of £1000. The competitors have to be graduates of the club. Miss Griffiths is a swimmer of more than ordinary class, and the day before she went to Goulburn for her first lesson—until ■ then she had never been in an aeroplane— she dived to the bottom of tho sea, brought handfuls of seaweed to the surface, and strung it round her neck, with the remark: "I've been to the bottom of the sea; now I'm going on top of tho clouds." This adventurous young lady, iwho confesses to having fallen under the spell of Amy Johnson, evidently gets her flair for mechanics from her grandfather, an engineer, who tiesigned the well-known Mort's Dock in Sydney. Kebe Griffiths met Amy Johnson at a public reception, sinc.o when she has thought of practically nothing' but flying.