When historians discuss the great female aviators of the 20th century, two names consistently dominate the conversation. The fearless American pioneer Amelia Earhart is almost always cited first. Her English counterpart Amy Johnson quickly follows, largely due to her historic 1930 solo flight from London to Australia. Both women achieved undying fame partially because their lives ended in grim and highly mysterious circumstances.
British female aviator Sheila Scott absolutely belongs in that same elite historical discussion.
Scott was a victim of a very different kind of tragedy in her later years. Her piloting skills easily matched those of her deeply celebrated predecessors. She became only the third woman in history to successfully complete a solo flight around the globe.
The summer of 1966 provided the backdrop for her monumental achievement. Scott plotted a route adding up to an astonishing 28,658 miles, breaking the record for the longest solo flight by any pilot regardless of gender. She crammed her frame into the cockpit of a Piper Comanche named Myth Too on May 18. The plane lifted off from London`s Heathrow Airport to begin an incredibly grueling adventure. She spent 189 hours in the air across 34 days, touching down in 19 different countries.Early layovers in Rome and Athens eventually led her to Damascus. She then completed a trio of touchdowns in India, landing in Jaipur, Delhi, and Calcutta.
Stops in Singapore and Indonesia paved her way to the Australian cities of Brisbane and Sydney. She crossed the Pacific Ocean via Auckland, Fiji, and Hawaii before hitting the American mainland at San Francisco. She navigated across Phoenix, El Paso, Oklahoma City, and New York before turning back toward Europe. A final Atlantic crossing took her through the Azores and Lisbon. She landed back at Heathrow on June 20 amid a massive blaze of international headlines.
She was awarded the prestigious Harmon Trophy later that same year. Previous winners of that specific aviation honor included Charles Lindbergh and Howard Hughes. Scott was born on April 27, 1922, in Worcester. She endured an affluent yet highly turbulent childhood and faced near expulsion from the genteel Alice Ottley School on multiple occasions.
She briefly worked as a naval nurse during the war before attempting an acting career. Her marriage to Rupert Bellamy in 1945 was completely unpicked by 1950. Searching for a viable occupation, she signed up for flying lessons at Hampshire’s Thruxton Aerodrome in 1958. She flew solo for the very first time at the age of 36 after just nine months of intense training.
She promptly purchased a converted De Havilland Tiger Moth known as a Thruxton Jackaroo. She flew that specific aircraft for half a decade.
Scott set more than 100 aviation speed records in the space of just six years. She entered the London-to-Sydney Air Race in 1969 as the only solo female pilot in the entire competition. She embarked on a third circumnavigation in 1971 inside a replacement Piper Apache named Mythre. She steered the plane from Nairobi to London, eventually flying over the North Pole before heading toward Alaska and Australia.
Scott was completely unstable on solid ground despite her incredible abilities in the air. She astonishingly took 12 years and four failed attempts to finally pass her basic driving test in 1971. She retired in the 1970s to write books and quickly drifted into severe financial ruin. She claimed her largely self-funded third circumnavigation left her buried under an £82,000 debt.
She spent her final years completely penniless, living alone in a dark basement bedsit in Pimlico.
Heavy smoking and lung cancer finally caught up with her in that tiny apartment. She died on October 20, 1988, at the age of 66. Her passing did not create the front-page ripples associated with Amelia Earhart or Amy Johnson. Her biographer Judy Lomax noted that while Johnson muddled her way to Australia with blind optimism, Scott always knew exactly what she was doing in the sky.
