The Flight of Wild Oats: An Aerial Adventure

Sidney Allinson is a Victoria-based communications consultant, Canadian
news correspondent for Britain’s The Army Quarterly and Defence, and
author of The Bantams: The Untold Story of World War I.

The Flight of Wild Oats chronicles an epic flight made in 1936 by a
husband-and-wife team who never achieved the fame enjoyed by the
legendary pilot pair, Amy Johnson and Jim Mollison. Fred and Marion
Goodwin’s round-trip journey aboard a two-seater deHavilland Puss Moth
took them from London, England, to Karachi, India, and back again. They
set out on this 10,000-mile journey immediately after getting their
pilot licences, with less than 30 hours of flying experience. “Wild
Oats,” their single-engined aircraft, was equipped with but three
instruments and a fuel tank able to carry just five hours’ worth of
gas (good for 500 miles).

The intrepid pair’s story is based on a series of letters Fred sent
home while en route. We do not get much insight into why this
comfortably well-off British couple suddenly decided to make such a
hazardous flight, leaving behind a baby daughter and a prearranged
guardianship, just in case. What the letters do reveal is the couple’s
carefreeness as they improvised landing arrangements and flight plans.
Reckless as it may seem, their casual attitude was probably the secret
of their success. In 1936, tensions were building in Europe and the
Middle East, which meant that landing arrangements were often difficult.
As these chatty letters reveal, Fred and Marion faced each obstacle with
good-humoured optimism; they braved long flights, storms, deserts, and
hostility with the oft-repeated credo “nothing to it.”

It is disappointing that no photographs were taken along the way. The
crude maps, which depict Pakistan 12 years before the country existed,
do little to enhance the book. Some of the footnotes suggest how
complicated the world was in the 1930s. Yet, the Goodwins blithely flew
on, oblivious to their own great courage.