Aviation is remarkably male dominated, which is odd considering that physiologically, women do make the better pilots. When we get to Test Pilots, the male domination is almost total.
Growing up a plane and war buff, one name stood out amongst the lists of men, Hanna Reitsch. Watching her interviews in documentaries, she seemed beyond remarkable. While Hanna and Melitta are bonded by a love of flight, they, as Mulley uncovers in her brilliant biography, could not have been more different.
Melitta and Hanna were born nine years apart, but their paths followed each other closely. In post war Germany, were powered flight was essentially forbidden, gliding became the only way to learn to fly. Both would attend the gliding schools in Hirschberg and both would channel their boundless energy into the pursuit. The similarities start to end there. Melitta came from upper class Prussian stock, while Hanna from a more middle class background in Hirschberg itself and this could be reflected in their lives.
The age difference is telling too, as the two would have very differing experience of growing up within the Weimar Republic and then the rise of National Socialism under Hitler. While the academic Melitta would pursue the knowledge of flight, Hanna would be swept up in the revival of German fortunes in the early thirties, chasing accolade upon accolade.
It is this dichotomy between the two that Mulley uses so well to tell these similar and yet drastically different lives.
