Uiver Collection Mollison was a pioneering Scottish pilot who had flown commercially for Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm's ill-fated Australian National Airways. His wife Amy was Amy Johnson, who in May 1930 had become the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia, flying a de Havilland DH 60 Gipsy Moth "Jason". English aviators Flight Lieutenant Charles Scott and Kenyan coffee plantation manager Captain Tom Campbell Black flew another Comet, a red aircraft, dubbed "Grosvenor House" by the historic hotel's owner. A third de Havilland DH 88 Comet was flown by Cathcart Jones and K. F. Waller, and was the
First solo flight States around "soloing", including drenching the student with water and cutting off and permanently displaying the back of his or her shirt. In American aviation lore, the traditional removal of a new pilot's shirt tail is a sign of the instructor's new confidence in his student after successful completion of the first solo flight. In the days of tandem trainers, the student sat in the front seat, with the instructor behind. As there were often no radios in these early days of aviation, the instructor would tug on the student pilot's shirttail to get his attention, and then yell in