It's straight out of the 'The English Patient' and ‘Biggles', the fictional flying hero – Tigers Moths, flying jackets, goggles and leather helmets. Very romantic and very fanciful.

But for Ruth Jones, the attachment to the biplane of the 1930s runs much deeper.

'Oh yes,” she almost coos. 'It's a beautiful machine. Easy to fly, no flaps, no brakes, no radio.” Real flying, says the purist. 'Modern planes are like driving cars.”

Ruth wonders what this story is about, what our interest is 'because I haven't done anything amazing.”

That's arguable because this Tauranga woman is a bit of a trailblazer. She also wined and dined, albeit once, with our legendary homegrown aviatrix Jean Batten.

These days Ruth fusses around Classic Flyers in a fluro vest on Wednesdays as one of the museum's most devoted volunteers.

'Classic Flyers” she muses affectionately. 'My joy of life. A little boost at the end of my life.”

Along with husband Rhys, whitebaiting and a commotion of grandchildren I suspect. Ruth taught all the grandkids the phonetic alphabet by the time they were seven – Alpha, Bravo, Charlie through to Zulu.

'People go to Classic Flyers because they love aeroplanes. I love aeroplanes and will talk to anyone about aeroplanes.”

She knows her Catalina Flying Boats from her Boeing Stearmans and De Havilland Devons, and she loves being among them. She especially loves the pleasure these relics, some of them working, bring to the kids.

'I had the best time of my life at Classic Flys,” said a misspelled thank you note to Ruth from eight-year-old Oliver. 'And especially sitting in the warplane.”

Ruth has special thoughts for the restoration team at Classic Flyers – 'passionate and skilled people and all of them volunteers.”

There's a back story here that's pretty amazing, even if Ruth doesn't think so. It is the story of a woman before her time, the trailblazer we mentioned earlier.

Back in the 50s, when most other young woman were coiffing themselves for the Saturday night dance, Ruth Anchor, as she was then, had a date, a date with the Tauranga Aero Club.

'I didn't have a car so the quickest way to the airport was across the rail bridge. There was no walkway so you had to be quick.” She was a risk taker.

Then she would skirt around the high tide mark to the airfield.

'When the planes came in they would need a fuel check and oil top up.” It was a means to an end for Ruth. 'If I did that for a day I would get 40-minutes free flying. My weekly fix!”

So where these celestial did urges come from?

'At school I was given a book called ‘Spirit of St Louis'” – a book about an epic solo flight, 33.5 hours from New York to Paris. It vaulted Charles Lindbergh from aviator to international celebrity.

'It was a most unusual book for a girl to get at school.” A seed was sowed. 'Obviously it was quite influential” and was nurtured aged 11. 'There was a spare seat in my uncle's plane one weekend. I filled it.” Fate had determined this young woman should be airborne.

'I didn't have an instructor as such. Just some top dressing pilots. When they finished their day they would teach me.” She mentions the names of Wall Bell and Len Pitcher with reverence.

'I loved aerobatics” says the adventurer. 'Spins, stalls, spins off the top of a roll, wings over and a slow roll.” All at 4000 feet over Tauranga Harbour and her parents blissfully unaware. 'They didn't know too much about it,” she giggles.

However when she got her pilot's licence, aged 19, her Dad was one of her first passengers.

The 1950s and 60s were blokey times, so the aero club must have been fairly liberal, ahead of its time?

'No,” she snaps 'I was ahead of my time. I was treated as just another person interested in aeroplanes.”

Then there was the night she wined and dined with Jean Gardner Batten CBE OSC.

'She was lovely and humble. Did not push herself.” Jean even bought the bubbles.

Through the dark days of the depression, Jean lifted the spirts of the entire nation with her heroic solo flights.

She was the manifestation of triumph and hope. But then over dinner and bubbles at the DB in Rotorua with Ruth and her flying mates, Jean agreed to become patron of their New Zealand Women Pilots Association. It was both humbling and inspiring.

Ruth will feel comfortable having her name uttered in the same breath as Jean. But she too, in her own way, is brave and determined.

'If I was dumped in the middle of the desert and had to find a way of fixing my propeller I think I could do it. And if I had to ride on a camel to get a new propeller I would.”