1. By Thierry Gibbons

2.  She was born in Rotorua on 15 th September, 1909

3.  Jean Batten wanted to be a pilot from when she was 18 years old  She failed in her first two attempts to beat the world flying record  She crash landed in Pakistan  She ran out of fuel in Italy

4.  She flew from England to Australia in May 1934 in the fastest time in a Gypsy Moth plane  It took almost 15 days for the flight  She beat the record by 4 days

5.  She took her plane back to New Zealand by boat because she wouldn’t have enough fuel to fly across the Tasman Sea  She set two more world records  Flying from England to Brazil  Flying from England to NZ

6.  Jean Batten stopped flying at the time of the second World War and went to live in Spain  She died in Majorca in 1982 from a dog bite after refusing treatment