A DARING female flyer is in a race against time to raise tens of thousands of pounds to fund her dream of following in the flightpath of Amy Johnson.

Professional pilot Amanda Harrison is planning to emulate the famous aviator by flying halfway around the world – alone in a tiny 1940s Tiger Moth biplane.

Ms Harrison, from Brize Norton, still needs to raise a further £40,000 to pay for her epic and perilous journey from Britain to Australia.

But with her plane due to take off on December 1, intrepid Ms Harrison is crossing her fingers that her bid for finance on a crowdfunding website pays off.

Ms Harrison, who operates leisure flights for a living, says the mission will take 19 days, cross 16 countries and cover 10,000 nautical miles as she tries to become the first woman to recreate the journey Ms Johnson made 85 years ago.

In a strange twist of fate, Ms Harrison has had to switch planes at the last minute – just like Amy Johnson.

She was supposed to be using the world’s oldest living ‘airworthy’ Moth from 1925 but has since decided to replace it with a similar model.

She said: “I’m quite nervous that mine and Amy’s stories are becoming quite similar. She had to change her plane at the last minute and now I’ve had to change mine too.”

Ms Harrison, who is in her 40s, added of Amy Johnson’s adventure: “What an incredible feat for anyone.

“However, can you imagine how hard that must have been back in 1930?

“I’m flying completely solo but I will have support on the ground at various locations.

“I will hopefully have someone meeting me at every country, but it will be a different person each time. I’m having no entourage as a homage to Amy Johnson.

“I have a GPS tracker which people can follow on the website, and if something goes wrong I can call someone out.

“I’m very excited to fly. I’m more nervous about being on the ground, getting to and from the aeroplane, or whether I’ll have a place to stay.

“I was just going to take a life jacket but now I’m also going to take a life raft. It’ll be sent to me just before I start going over the Timor sea. It has lots of sharks and everyone is convinced I’m going to be eaten by one.

“To be honest though, I’d rather be eaten by sharks than crash on land and be captured by people.”

Ms Harrison said she fell in love with adventure aviation from the word go.

“Seeing aeroplanes like this one flying inspired me to find out who flew them and where they flew. So imagine reading about a heroine that took to the skies all those years ago in one of these.”

Her aircraft has two sets of wings and a single fuselage where the pilot sits. It is possible to fit 10 of them into a British Airways Airbus A380, the plane usually flying from the UK to Australia.

Ms Harrison added: “ “I’ve done a lot of preparation for this. Flying through wind, rain, all types of weather.

I think I will feel all right while I’m up there. Of course my parents will be worried – but also very proud.”

The pilot, whose boyfriend Mike is supporting her mission, is crowdfunding to try to raise £5,000 towards a scholarship for the Flying Scholarships for Disabled People.

Visit amandajharrison.com and follow her adventure on Twitter at #Race2Darwin.