Jim Mollison

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James Allan ("Jim") Mollison (1905-1959) was a famous Scottish pioneer airplane pilot. Born April 19, 1905 in Glasgow, Mollison was to set many records during the rapid development of aviation in the 1930s.

In July-August 1931 Jim Mollison set a record time of 8 days 19 h for a flight from Australia to England, and in March 1932, a record for flying from England to South Africa in 4 days 17 h.

During one of his flights, he was matched with the equally famous pilot Amy Johnson, whom he proposed to only 8 hours after meeting her, and while still in the air. Johnson accepted; they married on July 1932, and she went off to break her husband's England to South Africa record. They were dubbed the flying sweethearts by the press and public. Jim continued his record-breaking attempts and on August 18, 1932 was the first pilot to perform an East-to-West solo trans-Atlantic flight from Portmarnock, Dublin, Ireland to Pennfield, New Brunswick, Canada. In February 1933 Mollison flew from England to Brazil in 3 days 13 h, using Africa as a stop-over continent, a record time and the first solo crossing. By then, he and his wife began to plan a record breaking flight across the world. On July 22, 1933, they took off from Wales, but their plane could not make it to Connecticut in the United States, crashing before landing there. He and his wife were injured, and the plane broken apart by souvenir seekers.

In October 1934 the Mollisons took part together in MacRobertson Air Race, attempting to recreate Jim's 1931 record flight in the reverse direction. Their de Havilland DH.88 Comet Black Magic led the competitors off the line and was leading at Baghdad, but they were forced to retire at Allahabad with a broken oil line.

The Mollisons' marriage became strained by the effects of being rivals for the same aviation records, and also because Jim had a drinking problem, and they were divorced in 1938.

Jim Mollison later settled in London and ran a public house. He died on October 30, 1959.