The Flying Feminist

The Flying Feminist

Mary Boone

Andrea Turk

Andersen Press, 2026

32pp., hbk., RRP $A29.99

9781839135101

Over the past few weeks, the name Christina Koch has been in the news almost daily as one of the four crew members of Artemis II  , the first crewed flight beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.  Yet it is not much more than 100 years ago, in 1903 that humans experienced powered flight for the first time when the Wright brothers make the first recorded powered, sustained and controlled flight in a heavier-than-air flying machine.

But at the same time that the world was marvelling at the feats of men in the air, there were many women also breaking down the barriers, but in a time when women were supposed to be docile, gentle and conform to and comply with the demands of males, their stories are not as well known. One of those was Lilian Bland, a young Anglo-Irish woman who had already defied convention by being a sports reporter, smoking, wearing trousers, hunting, shooting, and fishing. In 1910-11, inspired by a picture on a postcard sent to her by her uncle, she became the first woman in the UK, perhaps the world, to design, build, and fly an aircraft – the Bland Mayfly.

And in this easy-to-read, beautifully -illustrated biography, her story is told and her place in aviation history cemented so that it is more widely known.

In an interview with Christina Koch on her return to Earth. she quoted Marian Wright Edelman, an American activist for children’s rights. who said,  “You can’t be what you can’t see”, and the telling of Bland’s story and the inclusion of thumbnail biographies of seven other women who were pioneers in the aviation field in both Bland’s time and more recently may well inspire some to investigate the lives of our own trailblazers like Nancy Bird Walton, Robin Miller, and so many others including Katherine Bennell-Pegg, Australia’s first female astronaut (and the 2026 Australian of the Year) who defied convention, and perhaps begin to dream their own dreams.