Flying into the past

Tracey Curtis Taylor, the 53-year-old aviator, tells author about her unique flight in a vintage biplane from Britain to Australia

On a foggy morning in early October, Tracey Curtis Taylor had only flown for an hour on her way to Bucharest from Hungary's Ferto lake area in her open-cockpit vintage biplane when she noticed a dense cloud on the flight deck. She immediately turned around in search of a landing spot and found herself hovering over a cow paddock. As she moved closer to the ground, Curtis Taylor spotted a woman picking mushrooms. Hands settled firmly on her waist, the woman refused to move, anxious that the plane would damage the entire harvest. The aircraft circled around for quite some time before it managed to land.

"The adventure begins, I thought," laughs the British aviator who had her first flying lesson at 16.

The adventure had really just begun. On October 1, the self-styled "Bird in a Biplane" set off on a 13,000-mile solo flight from Britain to Australia to fly her 1942 Boeing Stearman Spirit of Artemis aircraft across 23 countries over the next 14 weeks. On a journey that took 18 months to prepare, she hopes to follow in the slipstream of Amy Johnson, another British aviator who became the first woman to fly solo along the same route in 1930.

In a plane that cannot go faster than 153 kmph and higher than 10,000 feet, Curtis Taylor has already winged past Europe and the Mediterranean to Jordan, over the Arabian desert, across the Gulf of Oman and Pakistan, to reach Ahmedabad in India before landing in Delhi - along with a support crew that travels in a modern aircraft to record her adventure.

Curtis Taylor may have been flying for more than 30 years, but she seems to be stuck in a time warp when it comes to choosing her flying machine. "I don't fly anything else. I simply love the old handmade airplane - the leather, the stitching, the woodwork, the smell of oil, the old-fashioned, romantic stick-and-rudder flying," she tells me, her sharp brown eyes gleaming in the dark, at the poolside in the Taj Mahal Hotel on Delhi's Mansingh Road, where she has been staying ever since she landed in the city.

The aviator who describes herself as an "enthusiastic amateur" says she would ditch the convenience of auto-pilot and glass cockpits for the magnificent views that her fixed-wing plane offers - villages a few hundred feet down, bystanders waving to her, beaches at only 50 feet, and vast deserts.

The intimate view from the open-cockpit aircraft, however, comes at a price. There's little escape from the the sun and the wind. "It's noisy; it vibrates you. You could be too cold or hot. There's no lavatory. It's quite a hostile environment."

When hunger bothers her aboard, biscuits and museli bars keep her going. But she is careful not to consume anything too sweet or salty to keep thirst at bay.

Although the longest she flies at a stretch is five hours, that's enough time for things to go wrong. During her 8,000-mile trip from South Africa to Britain in 2013, for instance, Curtis Taylor ran the risk of hypothermia. As she approached Egypt, the traffic control authorities would not let her fly below 9,500 feet owing to security concerns. "Because I was distracted last minute by the media and photographers, I got into the airplane under pressure in a flying suit and a T-shirt. I faced huge headwinds. It was freezing."

Apart from the weather, she finds the myriad security procedures and waiting time at the airports frustrating. Moreover, she has often been advised against flying through troubled regions, such as West Asia.

Not that she always heeds such advice. "That's the message. I'm pressing on regardless. Not letting a bunch of terrorists stop me."

I, clearly, look bewildered by her answer.

She whips out a bright golden pendent in the shape of a globe. Curtis Taylor never flies without her lucky charm, a gift from British actress Diana Rigg. "If you get kidnapped, you can use it as ransom," she recalls Diana telling her.

Moving her fingers around the "little gold atlas", she squints at Australia - her destination is still a few weeks away. For now, she's worried about the impending monsoon in Myanmar, which is her next stop. "It's worth the risk. I have nothing to lose," she says.