1934

Educated at Glasgow and Edinburgh Academies.

RAF commission in 1923, transferred to reserve 1928, then a lifeguard and air-mail pilot in Australia.

Made many record flights:

• Australia to England. July/Aug 1931. 8 days 19hrs 28min
• England-Cape (first flight by West coast Route) Mar 1932 - 4 days 17hrs 5min
• First solo Westward North Atlantic flight. August 1932
• First solo westward south Atlantic flight, and first flight England-South America, February 1933
• First flight England to USA (with Amy Johnson) July 1933
• England to India (with Amy Johnson) October 1934. 22 hours
• New York-Newfoundland-London (North Atlantic record crossing coast-to-coast 9 hours 20min) October 1936
• England-Cape by eastern route, November 1936. 3 days 6hrs.

m. Amy Johnson, 1932 (divorced 1936)

with second wife Phylis Hussey, 12 Nov 1938

One of the greatest solo pilots of the 1930s, but well past his glory days by the time he joined the ATA; through his constant drinking over the years, he had developed a very florid complexion, and in order to disguise it he had taken to powdering his face. When teased about this he said, "One must think of one's public, you know"

Hugh Bergel thought that he was "an infinitely nicer man than seemed possible after all the things that I had heard and read about him."

Despite his drinking, Jim completed over 1,000 delivery flights on 62 different aircraft types; he reckoned that, on a conservative estimate, he delivered not less than £15 million pounds worth of aircraft.

"...One cannot be young for long, and it has always been my practice to live for the moment."

d 30 October 1959 - Roehampton, from alcoholic epilepsy.

 Download ATA Pilot Personal Record (.zip file):