Elsie Mackay

In March 2008 an heiress defied convention and her family to take off from a snowy airfield on what was descibed at the time as "the most secret flight in aviation history." Her name was the Honourable Elsie Mackay and her aim was to become the first woman to fly the Atlantic. She was also making the attempt in a single engined monoplane flying east to west against the treacherous prevailing winds.
Sadly, like many other aviators before and since, she went missing and was last seen with her pilot making good time over the southernmost tip of the Irish coast. Months later part of the plane's undercarriage washed up on a beach in Donegal, north western Ireland, finally dashing any hope that she and her pilot, the engimatic Captain W G R Hincliffe, had survived.
Since then her story has almost been lost and what information exists is often mistaken. On this blog I hope to put the record straight and let people know about this extraordinary woman.