Winifred Crossley Fair

Winifred Crossley was the first woman to be checked out on a Hurricane fighter. She was one of the first women to join the Air Transport Auxiliary.

Life

Winifred "Winnie" Crossley was a pilot before the start of the second world war. She had worked by towing banners for aerial advertising for five years. She had also been a stunt pilot in an air circus. She was one of the first women to join the ATA and she served from 1940 to 1945. She became second in command at Ferry pool No. 5. She later married Peter Fair, the airline captain who was the head of BOAC's Bahamas Airways based in Nassau.

Legacy

A bus company in Hatfield named its eight buses after the "first eight" of the Tiger Moth pilots in the ATA, including Rees.

Fourteen years after her death in 2008, the fifteen surviving women members of the ATA (and 100 surviving male pilots) were given a special award by the Prime Minister Gordon Brown.