An Easy Plane to Love

Mary Wilkins (Ellis) 

(1917 - 2018)

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Flying, like writing, is in your blood. Either you have a passion for it or you don’t. Few were so passionate about flying as Mary Wilkins, a gifted natural pilot, who personified the ATA motto “Eager for the Air.”

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"I am the pilot," she once said to a group of RAF men who refused to believe she had just delivered a huge four engine bomber single handed to their airfield. Their disbelief was so great they searched inside the bomber in a vain attempt to locate the missing airman.

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During WW2, Mary flew over one hundred and forty different types of aircraft, on many occasions without any formal training in how to fly the make in question. Of the many aircraft she flew, her favorite was the Spitfire, which she considered to be made for the gentle touch of female pilots. Flying a Spit was like wearing wings, she once said. Wings that allowed her to full fill her childhood dreams of flight.

 

Mary's life in the air proclaimed her essential nature. "I am the pilot." And so she was.

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"The Spit was an easy plane to love. She was never afraid to see the type on her delivery chit, to know that she was about to get inside that small cockpit with the bubble canopy, the dome (often polished to perfection by the attendant team of fitters and riggers) that made it so easy to search the sky for enemy fighters. She felt almost the same way about the Hurricane, but not quite. The Hurri was heavier and harder to manoeuvre but on the other hand it could take the sort of damage that would send a Spit spiralling down to earth. And the Fairey Battle was like a bigger version of the Hurricane, while the Barracuda with its fin-like wings was a different type of fish altogether. "

 

From the collection of short stories, The Painted Sky.  

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