TAKING OFF by MARGARET THOMAS WARREN

'It was spring, and I was in my first grade schoolroom when I first saw an aeroplane. I looked out and saw something in the air, something with wings like an enormous dragonfly. I jumped up and ran out of the schoolhouse and followed the thing flying in the air until it sank from sight toward earth. I never forgot the aeroplane. I thought that somehow, when I learned to fly, I would find my own freedom...."

Margaret Thomas Warren (Tommy to her friends) obtained her pilot's license, signed by Orville Wright, on 6 May 1929, at the age of 17, making her the youngest licensed flier in the US at the time. She later became a stunt pilot for the Curtiss-Wright Exhibition Company, one of a team of three, the others being Red Jackson and Freddy Lund. She says: "I was the lead one. If I made a mistake, they could get out of the way."

TAKING OFF is about her early years - learning at Meacham Field, Fort Worth, Texas, flying out of Roosevelt Field, Mineola, Long Island (now, sadly, a shopping mall), the formation of The 99s and much more. Covering the period from 1929 to the early years of WWII, it deals with the aeroplanes, the places but mainly the people - the hardships, the fun and the friendships.

Margaret Thomas Warren has lived in Ireland for the past twenty years, and, from being the youngest licensed flier, probably became one of the oldest when she took up flying again at the age of 85, from the Hibernian Aero Club. She remains a member of the Long Island Early Fliers Club and the OX-5 Aviation Pioneers.

"In those days, I valued freedom and courage above all else. Now, I know better, in our world there is little freedom, and instead of dare-devil courage we need endurance. But then, flying was a symbol of freedom. It represented a wish to transcend and overcome difficulties and, on the other hand, a longing to soar towards the celestial, to break the bonds of earth. Flying to escape from something and flying, or aspiring, toward something."

Published:	Images Publishing, 1993
Price:	Euro 26 [US$24 approx] plus post (Visa & Mastercard taken)
ISBN:	1 897817169
	Hardbound, 218 pp., black and white photo and line illustrations
This book can be purchased from:	Schull Books, Ballydehob, County Cork, Ireland Tel/Fax: 00353 28 37317 email: schullbooks@eircom.net