Diana Barnato-Walker

Daughter of Woolf Barnato, as a girl she had an interest in aircraft and age 20 she learned to fly Tiger Moths at the Brooklands Flying Club, making her first solo flight after only six hours of instruction.

At the outbreak of WW2 she was a nurse in France and then became one of the first women pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). She flew low-powered single engine aircraft from factory or repair base to storage units flying units. Later she delivered several hundred Spitfires, Hurricanes and other fighter aircraft and, after further training, twin-engined aircraft such as Mosquitos and Wellingtons. By the end of the war she had flown 80 types of aircraft.

Post-war she was a volunteer pilot with the Women's Junior Air Corps, encouraging girls to enter the aviation industry. In August 1963 she became the first British woman to break the sound barrier and took the world air speed record for women when she flew an English Electric Lightning to Mach 1.6 (1,262 mph).