In the ‘Golden Age’ of flight in the 1920s and ’30s, a beautiful young British foreign correspondent, Lady Grace Drummond Hay, embraced the speed and convenience of air travel. Driven by a spirit of adventure, she voyaged on the _Graf Zeppelin_, Germany’s giant airship, becoming the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by air. Her reports, telegraphed from the skies, captivated readers around the world. She went on to fly in an amazing variety of aircraft—from the doomed _Hindenburg_ airship to flimsy biplanes and versatile amphibians. A qualified pilot, Grace owned several of her own planes, including a de Havilland Puss Moth, and once took the controls of the massive twelve-engined Dornier Do X flying boat. In the later 1930s, as war approached, she turned her attention to military aviation, travelling to Singapore to report on British imperial air forces, and investigating the growth of Chinese and Japanese air power. Flying with Pan American’s Clipper flying-boat services, she reported first-hand on the development of the trans-Pacific air route. The life and journalism of Grace Drummond Hay, who witnessed the end of the age of giant airships and the rise of modern aircraft, offers a unique and fascinating insight into the world of aviation between the wars.
