Spitfire Girls - TV Drama & Comedy (TBA)
Women of the WWII British Air Transport Auxiliary:
These exceptional women pilots delivered combat planes for the Royal Air Force. As it turned out, flying for the Air Transport Auxiliary was more dangerous than being a fighter pilot...
Flying a Typhoon fighter, ATA pilot Diana Barnato Walker was 2000 feet above Wiltshire when the underside of her plane peeled away. Like all ATA women, Diana had no instrument skills and had to try to guess her plane’s new stall speed and aerodynamics.
She battled the Typhoon to the airstrip at triple her usual speed. The undercarriage failed, she had no flaps to slow the plane. She hit the ground at 370 km/h. Unable to brake, Diana bounced the Typhoon down to the far end of the runway until it slowed and finally stopped. The ground staff rushed over, one of them chiding her for delivering only half a plane. Diana flew back that night after being told that 26 Typhoons had failed in flight, killing 25 of their pilots. This was a truly perilous job…
Spitfire Girls is the story of these women, their passion to achieve, and their experience of life in an arena that was ultimately more fatal than the world of the fighter pilot.
Supporting materials:
South Pacific Pictures has optioned two key books on the subject:
1. Spreading My Wings by Diana Barnato Walker
2. Spitfire Women of World War II by Giles Whitwell
