Was Jean Batten a pilot?
Jean Batten became interested in flying as a child, and was further inspired by a flight that she took with the famous Australian aviator Charles Kingsford Smith. Jean trained to fly in England, and quickly set herself the goal of becoming the first person to fly from England to New Zealand. She achieved this record breaking flight in 1936, but by then she had already broken a number of flying records. In 1934 she broke the women’s record for flying from England to Australia, and in 1935 she set several records in her flight from England to Brazil. Then in 1936 she was the first person to fly solo from England to New Zealand setting a record that would remain unbroken for more than 40 year.
