How Lilian Bland Built Herself A Plane
In 1910, an Anglo-Irish women named Lilian Bland built a plane, with little to no encouragement from her family or aviation enthusiasts. Shortly after the plane took off, she quit flying, moving on to her next challenge.
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Show Notes
“Hoots and derision, which did not worry me at all,” Lilian Bland wrote, describing her visit to an airshow in Blackpool, England in 1909. She’d been telling everyone there that she intended to build and fly her own airplane. They were unimpressed. Lilian was undeterred. She built a DIY plane of bamboo, wood, and fabric, with a bicycle handlebar for steering and an engine she carried from England back to her home in Ireland. But would the Mayfly, as she called it, fly?
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