About the Bird in a Biplane
Raised in Canada and surrounded by magnificent scenery, Tracey naturally took to adventure, so it was no surprise to her parents when she developed a passion for flight, having her first flying lesson aged 16.
She returned to England with her family in the 70’s and her early working career in London including training with de Beers as a diamond valuer and the Diplomatic Service at the Foreign Office in Whitehall.
But the ‘call of the wild’ and an ongoing fascination with Africa made Tracey cut the rope on her conventional life in England. She went to South Africa in 1982 where she worked for several months before returning to the UK overland in a Bedford truck – a journey that took five months camping through savannah, jungle and desert.
Shortly after her return Tracey migrated to New Zealand and began flying in earnest. She gained her private pilot’s licence, commercial licence and an instructor rating and, unusual for a woman, was trained by military pilots to fly World War II aeroplanes with the New Zealand Warbird Association.
In tandem with her love of flying, an interest in geology, landscape and imagery led to Tracey pursuing another career in aerial photography and mapping, which was to hold her in good stead for her future flying pursuits.
Always adventurous, she is also passionate about other forms of early pioneering transport and in particular, old cars. As a result, she took part in the 2007 centenary Peking to Paris classic car rally that re-traced the route first driven by Prince Borghese in 1907. This involved driving for six weeks through northern China, the Gobi Desert, across Russia to the Baltic and on to Paris – an epic experience that combined great adventure with rugged endurance.
When not flying, her other interests include gemmology and geography (she is a Fellow of the British Gemmological Association and the Royal Geographical Society). She is also a keen oil painter.
For Tracey, flying is in the blood. Although she has many other loves, as can be seen from the list below, flying remains her passion.
Overland from Johannesburg to London in a Bedford truck
A journey that took five months camping through savannah, jungle and desert terrain.
Rafting expedition to Papua New Guinea
The only female in a team of fifteen people, Tracey was one of the photographers on the trip which included rafting on some uncharted parts of the Watut River and staying with tribes along the way who had never seen a white woman.
Scuba diving expeditions in the South West Pacific on WW2 wrecks
Tracey learnt to dive off the northern coast of Papua New Guinea and did several other diving trips to Australia, Vanuatu and Fiji during the early 1990's. The highlight was diving on World War 2 wrecks and exploring the islands of the Melanesian archipelago for old military airstrips cut into the jungle and finding fragments of aircraft in the villages.
Peking to Paris Vintage and Classic Car Rally
The rally re-traced the route first driven by Prince Borghese in 1907. It involved driving for six weeks through northern China, the Gobi Desert, across Russia to the Baltic and on to Paris.
Kiev to Cape Town flight in an Antonov 2
In preparation for her flight across Africa, Tracey was invited to join a three man Russian crew ferry flying an old piston engined Antonov 2 biplane from Kiev to Cape Town. The aeroplane was donated by Utair for humanitarian work in South Africa and supported by ExecuJet.
The route took the crew across northern Europe and down through Spain over the Straits of Gibraltar to Morocco; south through Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Gabon, and on down the west coast of Africa.
The flight arrived in Cape Town on 20th of February 2013 having taken three months to complete. The journey covered over 20,000km over 15 different countries, used over 85kg of maps and flight charts, and had two enforced halts over several weeks in Port Harcourt and Cabinda with visa and fuel issues.
Cape Town to Goodwood flight
In 2013 Tracey flew nearly ten thousand miles from Cape Town to Goodwood in her Boeing Stearman, the Spirit of Artemis. The flight was inspired by Lady Heath who was the first pilot, male or female, to fly a light aircraft solo from Cape Town to London in 1928.
Largely forgotten today, Mary Heath started life as plain Sophie Pierce from rural Ireland. During a five year period in the mid 1920's she went on to become one of the most famous people in the world, breaking records as one of the first female Olympic athletes, the first woman to do a parachute jump in public and the first female to hold a commercial pilots license and an engineer's license in the UK. Lady Heath's flight up Africa was her finest achievement. Within a year of this, she suffered a terrible crash in America, went through a very public divorce from Sir James Heath, and died in obscurity a few years later. Her story is brilliantly told in Lindy Noughton's book Lady Icarus.
Tracey's expedition up the east side of Africa took two months to complete with 38 stops. She was supported by a second aircraft, a Cessna Caravan provided and piloted by Phoenix Aviation of Nairobi, and additional personnel including engineer, Ewald Gritsch, a four-man film team from Nylon Films and a logistics person.
The crew experienced serious problems in the Sudan where they had to divert away from fighting in the south and were then grounded by the authorities in the north due to issues with documentation. A severe storm over the eastern Mediterranean and a mechanical breakdown on the Egyptian coast added further difficulties.
Notwithstanding, flying Africa in the Spirit of Artemis was the culmination of a twenty five year dream for Tracey and she considers this one of the finest experiences of her life.
Great Britain to Australia
In 2015, Tracey took on the challenge of flying her Boeing Stearman from the UK to Australia. This was in honour of Amy Johnson and her epic solo flight which astounded the world.
In 1930, with less than a hundred hours in her logbook, Amy Johnson set off to Australia in an attempt to break the world record of fifteen days. She left Croydon with just three people to wave her off, had several crash landings en route, during a violent sandstorm in the Iraq Desert, again in India, and her worst, in heavy monsoon rain in Rangoon. Amy flew on through volcanic ash clouds and thunderstorms over the Indonesian islands and finally crossed the Timor Sea to Darwin to become the first woman to fly to Australia and hundreds of thousands of people were there to meet her. It is one of the most brilliant solo achievements in history. Amy was feted around the world and tragically lost her life ten years later flying for the Air Transport Auxiliary in 1941.
Tracey's expedition took just over three months with 65 stops through 23 countries, covering a distance of 14,600 miles. It was not possible to fly Amy's route through the Middle East because of the current conflict, so a diversion was made over Israeli airspace into Jordan and then Saudi Arabia before picking up the track again in Pakistan. Tracey was supported by Ewald Gritsch from 3G Classic Aviation, a Pilatus PC-6 aircraft with a pilot and cameraman.
The historic US airmail route from Seattle to Boston
Marking the centenary of the Boeing Company, in 2016 Tracey embarked on a flight across America following the historic US airmail route from Seattle to Boston.
Sadly, the 2016 US Transcontinental Flight came to an abrupt halt when the Spirit of Artemis crashed in the desert shortly after take off from Winslow, Arizona. The engine suffered a partial power loss, most likely caused by contaminated fuel, which was sufficient to stop it flying at the high density altitude of 7000ft. The Stearman cartwheeled shortly after it hit the ground when it struck a dense sage bush. The damage to the airframe and engine was extensive but Tracey and
Ewald Gritsch stepped out of the cockpit unscathed, which was a testament to the Stearman's
famously strong design.
On the day of the accident Tracey had some of the best flying she has ever experienced over spectacular scenery - the Grand Canyon, Lake Powell and Monument Valley.
The recovery of the Stearman was expedited with the invaluable support of insurance partner,
GIC Re. It was airlifted back to Europe where 3G Classic Aviation's team of dedicated engineers
worked around the clock on the rebuild. The Spirit of Artemis was finished in time to attend the
2016 Farnborough Air Show and Boeing's Centenary celebrations in the UK.
The US Transcontinental was resumed in June 2017 and successfully completed in July.
US Transcontinental Flight / 'Spirit of Victory'
Tracey Curtis-Taylor flew into the American Airpower Museum at historic Republic Airport, New York on July 9 in her Boeing Stearman to a fantastic reception from the aviation community and well-wishers.
Several other Stearman aircraft were there to meet her on the tarmac, and she was piped in by the local school band St Johns High School Bagpipers, in bright yellow and black kilts. At the reception, Tracey was thrilled to meet members of the 'Ninety Nines', the international organisation of women pilots which was established in 1929 by Amelia Earhart and see the exhibition dedicated to the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) of WW2.
Tracey left Los Angeles on June 22 and flew the 3,000mile route across America to New York in 13 legs over two and a half weeks with various stops en route for filming and sight-seeing. There were many highlights including a visit to the Boeing Apache helicopter production plant in Phoenix, a poignant return to Winslow where she crashed last year; two glorious days of nostalgia visiting the old Boeing factory in Wichita where Tracey's Stearman was built in 1942; and seeing old friends at Galesburg Municipal Airport, home of the Stearman National Fly-in, where Tracey was guest speaker last year. The finale flight was up the Hudson River past the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline in a golden sunset. A fitting end to the global expeditions which have taken Tracey and her Boeing Stearman across five continents.
The US Transcontinental flight was supported by her usual fantastic crew Ewald Gritsch, Max Sherman and cameraman, Simon Fanthorpe.
Special thanks to all the people and organisations who pitched in with such boundless enthusiasm and generosity to help make this flight a triumph:
The Boeing Company, Dr Randy Sherman and everybody at Santa Monica Airport, the incomparable Clay Lacy and helicopter ace, Steve Stafford; the Commemorative Airforce at Falcon Field, Phoenix; Dwayne Clements and Stearman Field,Wichita; the Kansas Aviation Museum and Spirit Aerosystems, also based in Wichita; Creve Coeur Airport in St Louis, Philip Wolford and his team at Jet Air, Galesburg Airport, Kevin Daniels in Santa Fe and Kenny Roller in Cleveland, and the delightful and dedicated team at the American Airpower Museum at Republic Airport.