Margaret Fairweather was a British aviator and one of the first eight women members of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). She was the first woman to fly a Supermarine Spitfire.
One of the first eight
The founding ATA pilots and their Tiger Moths: left to right Pauline Gower, Winifred Crossley Fair, Margaret Cunnison, Margaret Fairweather, Mona Friedlander, Joan Hughes, Gabrielle Patterson, Rosemary Rees and Marion Wilberforce
The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was a British civilian organisation set up at the start of the Second World War with headquarters at White Waltham Airfield in Berkshire. The ATA ferried new, repaired and damaged military aircraft between factories, assembly plants, transatlantic delivery points, maintenance units (MUs), scrapyards, and active service squadrons and airfields, but not to naval aircraft carriers. It also flew service personnel on urgent duty from one place to another and performed some air ambulance work. Notably, around 10% of its pilots were women, and from 1943 they received equal pay to their male colleagues, a first for the British government.
ATA, Air Transport Auxiliary Ferry pilot's badge
Commendation for ATA pilot Ruth Kerly
First Officer Maureen Dunlop on the cover of Picture Post magazine
Diana Barnato Walker climbing into the cockpit of a Spitfire