TWO authors who have chronicled the stories of courageous women aviators with strong Isle of Wight links, will be special guests at an open day held at the Wight Aviation Museum today (Saturday).

The free event, at the Isle of Wight Airport, near Sandown, will feature authors Sally Smith and Alison Hill, who have written fascinating tales of remarkable women aviators.

Sally, author of Those Magnificent Women and their Flying Machines, is herself a seasoned skydiver and balloonist, who launched the country's first all-female parachute team.

Also, Alison's latest work details the exploits of Pauline Gower, in Spitfire Women — an aviator whose connection to the Isle of Wight runs deep.

Read more: Isle of Wight plane museum Wight Aviation is open for season

She was part of the successful Gower-Spicer partnership, operating Spartan aircraft built on the Island.

Alison also sheds light on her partner, Dorothy Spicer, who was trained in secrecy on Spartan aircraft at Saunders-Roe in Cowes, as women were excluded from attaining certain engineering licences at that time, during the early part of the 1900s.

Visitors to the museum, which celebrates the aviation, aerospace history and heritage of the Isle of Wight, can enjoy free tours and a walk through its new exhibition space.

A lucky visitor may win a limited edition print of Island artist Ivan Berryman's painting of a Spartan bi-plane G-ABYN, a symbol of the Gower-Spicer partnership.

The picture depicts a Spartan plane soaring over Osborne House, once Queen Victoria's Island home.

The day's agenda includes unveiling the museum's plans to retrieve an G-ABYN aircraft from Down Under.

The Wight Aviation Museum teams is continuing with a bid to raise funds to buy the last three-seater Spartan II to have been built at Somerton in the 1930s.

The privately-owned plane is currently in New Zealand, but there is a long-standing hope to bring it back to the Island, where it would become a centrepiece display, to encourage young people into aviation.

Given the registration number of G-ABYN ('Gabby') and serial number 102, it is the last of its type and engine.

Today's event commences at 10am and will run till 4pm. Talks by the authors start at 2pm.