Aroha Clifford

Mary Lucy Aroha Brustad (née Clifford; 23 August 1908 – 30 November 1933) was a New Zealand pilot. She was the first woman in New Zealand to gain a pilot's licence from an aero club. On 8 May 1930, Clifford became the first woman pilot to fly across Cook Strait. Her parents were Walter Lovelace Clifford, who succeeded to the Clifford baronetcy in 1938, and Catherine Clifford (née Bath). She spent part of her childhood in England, where she attended Ascot Convent. The family returned to New Zealand and settled in Fendalton, Christchurch, and Clifford continued her education at St Mary's Convent. As a teenager, she was a keen mountaineer and skier, and frequently hiked in the Aoraki / Mount Cook region.

In February 1930 she participated in the Blenheim Air Pageant at Woodbourne Aerodrome. She won the Jackson Cup in the pilots' landing competition, and also won the Zero Hour competition. On 8 May 1930, Clifford became the first woman to pilot an aeroplane across Cook Strait.

Clifford returned to New Zealand in 1931, bringing back her own aeroplane, a de Havilland Puss Moth, which she had purchased in England. On 23 September 1931 at her parents' home in Fendalton, Clifford married Alf Brustad, a Norwegian guide at the Hermitage Hotel, Mount Cook Village, who had been her guide on several mountaineering expeditions in the area. The couple lived in Christchurch until early 1933, when they purchased a farm in Waiau and moved there. She was 25 years old.

Aroha