In quest of adventure, two blithe British women took off last week. One, Lady Mary Bailey, with a mad flourish of acrobatics, hopped across Europe on her lonesome way to Cape Town, Africa. The other, the Hon. Elsie Mackay, madcap daughter of James Lyle Mackay, Viscount Inchcape of Strathnaver, muffled herself almost beyond recognition and stealthily departed with one-eyed Capt. Walter G. R. Hinch-liffe on the treacherous flight across the Atlantic, Westward.
Lady Mary is, blithe and blither, on her way. Miss Mackay, with Capt. Hinchliffe and their golden-winged monoplane Endeavor, is in the limbo of the lost.
Lady Mary, champion woman aviator of 1927 by edict of the International League of Aviators, is taking the 6,000-mile trip from London to Cape Town solely for amusement—"to see how far I can go." She is taking her time, flies when she feels like it, even when that means (as it did at Marseilles) landing in a gale. She is flying a small plane, a baby Moth, popular with European amateurs. Near her destination are the gold and diamond mines of her husband, Sir Abe.
The Hon. Elsie Mackay, 34, daughter of a peer, has done daring things since childhood. Unimpressed by her father's millions (Peninsular & Oriental Steamship Co.), she eloped with Capt. Dennis Wyndham (before the War, an actor) and laughed at disinheritance. She went on the stage herself and on the screen, as Poppy Wyndham. Suddenly she had her marriage annuled and returned to her father's home. As suddenly she took up flying, won her pilot's license five years ago, and nourished the determination to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic.
Dark, not unattractive, graceful, habitually well-gowned and bejeweled, Miss Mackay was the envy of most women. Her silver Rolls-Royce flashed by at breakneck speed. Her horses invariably galloped. She even participated in an "outside loop," most dangerous of all stunts in air, with Capt. E. C. D. Herne as her pilot. (Her safety-strap broke during the loop, but she clung with amazing wit and courage to bracing wires, while her body swung outside the plane like a stone twirled on the end of a piece of string.) She was fond of animals, particularly horses and dogs, and one of the tragedies of her life was the death of her favorite borzoi, who jumped thirty feet out of an open window and broke his neck in a vain attempt to reach her side.
Few saw Capt. Hinchliffe and Miss Mackay take off from Cranwell Airdrome, England, for the War veteran had told only two friends he was going and Miss Mackay had promised her family she would not. None is known to have seen them once they got beyond the Irish coast. A crowd of 5,000 stood all night at Mitchell Field, Long Island, waiting for them. But they never came.
Four other women have tried to span the Atlantic by air and none has succeeded.
Princess Lowenstein-Wertheim, first of the adventurers, left England last Aug. 31 with Capt. Leslie Hamilton and Lieut. Col. Frederick F. Minchin. They were last sighted over Ireland.
Ruth Elder was next, leaving New York Oct. 11 with George Haldeman. They came down in the ocean off the Azores, and were so fortunate as to land beside the Dutch steamship Barendrecht. They were rescued as their plane caught fire and sank.