Jean Batten

rdf:langString Jean Batten

rdf:langString Jean Batten

rdf:langString Jean Batten

rdf:langString Palma, Mallorca, Spain

rdf:langString Rotorua, New Zealand

rdf:langString Jane Gardner Batten

rdf:langString Batten after her successful England to Australia flight, Mascot, Sydney, 1934

rdf:langString Record-breaking solo flights

rdf:langString Jane Gardner Batten CBE OSC (15 September 1909 – 22 November 1982), commonly known as Jean Batten, was a New Zealand aviator, making a number of record-breaking solo flights across the world. She is notable for completing the first solo flight from England to New Zealand in 1936. Born in Rotorua, Batten went to England to learn to fly. She made two unsuccessful attempts to fly from England to Australia solo, before finally achieving the feat in May 1934, taking just under 15 days to fly the distance in a Gipsy Moth biplane. The flight set a new record for the women's solo flight between the two countries. After a publicity tour around Australia and New Zealand, she flew the Gipsy Moth back to England, setting the solo women's record for the return flight from Australia to England. In doing so she became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia and back again. In November 1935, she set the absolute record of 61 hours, 15 minutes, for flying from England to Brazil. In the course of this endeavour, made in a Percival Gull Six monoplane, she completed the fastest crossing of the South Atlantic Ocean and was the first woman to make the England–South America flight. The pinnacle of her flying achievements was completed in October 1936, when she flew her Gull from England to New Zealand, covering the distance in a little over 11 days, an absolute record which would stand for 44 years. The following year she made her last major flight, flying from Australia to England to set a new solo record. During the Second World War, Batten unsuccessfully applied to join the Air Transport Auxiliary. Instead, she joined the short-lived Anglo-French Ambulance Corps and worked in the munitions industry. In the years following the war, Batten lived a reclusive and nomadic life with her mother, Ellen Batten, in Europe and the Caribbean. Ellen, a strong personality who dominated her daughter, died in Tenerife in 1967, and soon afterwards Batten returned to public life with several appearances in relation to the aviation industry and her own record achievements. She had no close relationships. Her death in Mallorca in November 1982 from complications of a dog bite went publicly unnoticed at the time due to a bureaucratic error. Her fate was eventually discovered by a journalist in September 1987.