Timeline
Sophie is a keen sportswoman throughout her teens and early 20's, she is moved from one of her boarding schools because she is too involved in sports and competes agianst both boys and girls. In Aberdeen and later in London her interest in Athletics grows and she begins to compete internationally in a number of sports, athletics
hockey, golf and lacrosse.
Sophie holds a number of (contested) records in Athletics.
- High jump 3’ 10’’
(Moate) 4’ 4’’
(Landsdowne road) 4’
(Landsdowne road) 4’ 6’’ - 2nd High Jumper in Britain & Ireland
(Galway) 4’ 9’’
She also competes in Javelin, high hurdles, shot put and discus.
1922
She becomes the Secretary & Treasurer of newly formed Women’s Amateur Athletic Association (WAAA).
Women’s Olympic Games (later renamed due to objections from the Olympics)
Women were excluded from the Olympics proper, something she campaigns against.
In Javelin, she has an appreciation for aerodynamics and Centre of Gravity, basing her technique on Masai warriors.
She becomes the spokesperson for healthy women, publishing a book on Athletics for Women & Girls.
Sophie meets a pilot (May 1925) – Capt. Reid at National Aero Club.
August 1925: Sophie is among the first 15 people to sign up to London Aeroplane Club (Stag Lane, London)
First passenger in the club – half hour flight (DH Moth). Instructors: Sir Alan Cobham, James Milo St. John Kearney (later to become an instructor in Shannon Aero Club).
Sophie takes 20 x half-hour lessons (10FH) are sufficient to learn to fly.
- 18 October 1925: She completes her First Solo
- 30 October: Sophie takes her Skill Test for (A) Licence (private pilot licence)
- 4 November: (A) Licence issued (No. 7975)
A further 50 flying hours required before a pilot may carry a passenger.
G-EBKT DH Moth – her first aircraft
Cost of an aeroplane is between £400 - £700.
Brute force is not required for piloting the average light machine.
31 May 1925 Night rating (necessary for (B) licence skill test that she hadn’t been allowed to gain).
1926 ICAN unanimously removed ban on women
After a faied attempt on April 2nd, which reportedly saw her land in the middle of a football pitch hanging on precariously to the wing, Sophie is the first woman recorded as having jumped from a plane with a parachute, she jumps from 1500 feet and lands safely in a ploughed field.
Flying SE 5a Viper Sopwith Experimental
aircraft reg: G-EBPA
She becomes a Flight Instructor with London Aero Club.
She is arguably the most prominent female pilot in Britain and the most famous Irish Woman of her time.
Nick-named "Lady Hell-of-a-Din" ,rhyming with her married name Eliott-Lynn, in some media.
She flies a DH 51 Moth while in Africa
18 May 1927 : she sets the altitude record 15,748 ft with her student Lady Bailey as a passenger.
Flight Magazine – 'Mrs. Eliott-Lynn is particularly good and practically vertical'
July 1927: She buys her Avro Avian Mk 2 for £750
Reg: G-ERBS
She completes a 79-stop trip around England.
During her annual visit to her cousins in Ballybunion she takes locals flying
She flies across the Irish Sea completing a trip Dublin-Manchester-Wales-Scotland-Belfast-Dublin. Comdt Fitzmaurice welcomed her landing in the Pheonix Park where she then flew to Baldonnel airfield to clear customs
She is quoted as saying one needed youth, health and a modicum of wealth to be an aviator.
She was a full member of the Royal Aeronautical Society – but not entitled to attend meetings, a stipulation she campaigned against.
18 November 1927 : G-EBUG shipped to Cape Town
5 January 1928: Departs Cape Town for J’burg
9 January: East London (SA) to Durban
Torrential rain damaged her engine
22 January: J’Burg
As the First Woman pilot to visit South Africa she faced multiple challenges: Swamps, floods, rain, hostile natives
Large areas of Africa unmapped – maps at a huge scale
Needs a bigger fuel tank – 60 gal
Communication with media, comments that of all the colonies her communiques from British colonies were the most difficult, taking a long time to arrive or not arriving at all.
Found Broken Hill by the smoke from the zinc and lead mines
Navigating by railway line
In Nairobi International Airport – she was robbed while sleeping
First woman to fly over the equator (Uganda)
Landed in Cairo in a series of long and enthusiastic loops – at the wrong aerodrome.
Aircraft was impounded in Cairo as they didn’t think a sea crossing was safe for a woman.
1-3 hours of aircraft maintenance daily
Avoided flying in midday heat
Flew high to cool the engine.
Sollum aerodrome – ripped off the aft quarter of her plane
Egyptian carpenters repaired it using soap-boxes, petrol tins, and odd scraps of wood
Ghibli – a storm wind from the South; hot and strong and fierce
Italy – Volcanic outpourings from Vesuvius
Met Mussolini
Arrives in Croydon – even with a patch repaired tail – she loops the aircraft
17 May 1928: First woman to fly solo from South Africa to London
Flying a GREAT LAKES TRAINER Aircraft Sophie crashes at the Cleveland National Air Races - She crashes through the concrete roof of the Mills Company factory
- 2 fractures of the skull
- broken nose
- fractured jaw -jawbone forced up
- traumatic brain injury
she spends 2 weeks in a coma, waking mid-September but never fully recovering.
Documentary made by Brian Palfrey based on the biography of Lady Mary Heath “Lady Icarus’ by Lindie Naughton.