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Britain's famous female aviator Amy Johnson is being honoured with a Google Doodle.

Johnson, born in Hull 114 years ago today, made history with her 11,000-mile solo flight from Britain to Australia in 1930.

To celebrate her life, Google has created a unique Doodle which shows Johnson's face and a plane flying over land and then 'down under'.

It recognises one of the great heroines of the aviation industry.

After gaining a degree in economics and moving to London, Amy took up flying as a hobby, encouraged by her father, oil tycoon Lord Wakefield.

She became one of very few women to gain a pilot's licence in 1929, and purchased a second-hand her De Havilland Moth biplane for £600.

The following year she set off on her incredible journey to the other side of the world from Croydon, south London.

(Image: Mirrorpix)

It took 19 days before she landed in Darwin, Australia.

Amy was the first woman to have made the trip unaccompanied.

Her biplane is preserved in the Science Museum in London.

She was honoured with a CBE by George V for her achievement.

(Image: SSPL/Getty Images)

The intrepid adventurer followed up her astounding 1930 feat in a biplane by setting records for the fastest flights from Britain to Japan, South Africa, and India.

She also became the first person to fly from London to Moscow in a single day.

Amy was beacon to generations of girls who dreamed of breaking free from domestic drudgery for a life of romance and adventure.

And her legacy lives on, even 75 years after death. Budget airline easyJet has named a plane after her and doubled the number of female pilots this year at its Amy Johnson Flying Initiative.

But she ran out of records to set and decided to serve Britain in the Second World War by delivering planes around the country for the RAF .

She died in 1941 after crashing into the Thames Estuary while flying a plane for the ATA.

She managed to parachute out, but rescuers were unable to recover her from the ice-cold water.

The exact circumstances of Johnson's death aged just 37 remain shrouded in mystery.

The Mirror revealed last year how one historian believes Amy met a grisly end and was chopped up in the propeller blades of the ship sent to rescue her.

(Image: Liverpool Echo)

Dr Alec Gill told how on January 5, 1941, Amy flew through snow and freezing fog, with a broken compass, to deliver a new Airspeed Oxford plane from Blackpool to Oxfordshire.

She had defied orders to stay put. The flight should have taken 90 minutes but four hours later she crashed off the Kent coast near Herne Bay.

Most historians believe she got lost in the thick cloud and was blown badly off course.

When her plane ran critically short of fuel she spotted the Royal Navy convoy in the Thames and bailed out, for the first and last time in her glittering career, hoping to be rescued.

Seconds after opening her parachute she crashed into the water. Her fingers turned white as she waved frantically for help, before she vanished.