The Scottish aviator who brought the world's attention to Pennfield, N.B.
CBC
James Mollison never intended to finish his Trans-Atlantic solo flight in New Brunswick.
The Scottish aviator was trying to fly from Ireland to New York City non-stop in the summer of 1932.
He wanted to become the first to fly solo across the Atlantic "the hard way," from Europe to North America, which meant battling headwinds the whole way.
But, as he headed south along the New Brunswick coast after nearly 30 hours in the air, Mollison realized New York was just too far away.
"I went along the coast and then — well, my gas supply was so low I knew I couldn't make my destination," Mollison told the Evening Times-Globe reporters who rushed to Pennfield, about 70 kilometres southwest of Saint John, after he landed.
"And I was all in — tired as a dog — and when I saw this field, I decided to put down."
The field belonged to farmer James Armstrong, and the plane had come to rest in the middle of a patch of blueberries.
As the Times Globe said on Aug. 20, 1932, the day after Mollison landed, Pennfield had "suddenly and unexpectedly become the centre of the limelight of world news."
Unlike the Pennfield farmers who greeted him, Mollison was no stranger to the limelight.
Born in Glasgow in 1905, Mollison learned to fly in the Royal Air Force in the early 1920s.
After short stints as a flight instructor and commercial pilot, he decided to try to make his name by breaking aviation records.
In the summer of 1931, he rose to fame by flying from Australia to England in a then-record eight days and 19 hours.
He followed that up in the spring of 1932 with a record-breaking flight from England to Cape Town, South Africa.
But his place as a darling of the British press was likely cemented when he married Amy Johnson, an English aviatrix whose fame rivalled Amelia Earhart's.
