Lettice Curtis

Eleanor Lettice Curtis (1 February 1915 – 21 July 2014) was an English aviator, flight test engineer, air racing pilot, and sportswoman.

Her father was lord of the manor of Denbury, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn[2] and a grandson of Matthew Curtis (1807–1887) of Thornfield in the parish of Heaton Mersey, Lancashire, a leading manufacturer of cotton-spinning machinery in Britain and thrice Mayor of Manchester.

[2] Curtis was educated at Benenden School and St Hilda's College, Oxford where, in addition to studying Mathematics, she was Captain of the University Women's Lawn Tennis and Fencing teams.

[3] She commenced her ATA career by delivering primary training aircraft such as the Tiger Moth, progressing to the Miles Master and North American Harvard advanced trainers.

[7] With the nationalisation of the aircraft industry in the sixties she left Fairey for the Ministry of Aviation, working for a number of years on the initial planning of the joint civil/RAF Air Traffic Control Centre at West Drayton.

Five ATA flyers Lettice Curtis, Jenny Broad , Audrey Sale-Barker , Gabrielle Patterson and Pauline Gower in 1942 by an Airspeed Oxford trainer