Neither the
London—Australia flight of the Smith brothers in 1919 nor
the London—Cape Town flight of Van Ryneveld and Brand in
1920 convinced governments or airlines that routine air
transportation between these points was feasible. Cobham’s
flights accomplished this, and serious international flights
over long distance (in many countries, not just from
England) began after Cobham’s flights.
The flight to
Australia had been anything but routine. While flying over
Iraq, a sandstorm forced Cobham to fly low. Bedouins,
probably seeing their first airplane, shot at it and hit
Arthur Elliott, Cobham’s co-pilot and long-time friend.
Cobham made an emergency landing in Basra and Elliott was
taken to a hospital, but he died the next day. This incident
underscored the dangers of flying over unknown territory;
that Cobham’s flight was able to convince people that flying
was practical in spite of Elliott’s death was a tribute to
Cobham’s planning and perseverance.
Cobham is shown here returning to London
from one
such historical flight, to Australia and back.
Another of his flights was to Cape
Town, South Africa.
Cobham’s next project was
to survey the coast of Africa from the air (filming from an
open cockpit) in preparation for commercial flights to
African, Asian, and South American destinations. He then
toured England, sponsoring National Aviation Day exhibitions
that entertained and informed the public on the benefits of
air transportation. Cobham became a proponent of in-flight
refuelling, founding a company that became the world leader
in the development of that technology. He died in 1973 at
the age of seventy-nine, after a distinguished career in
aviation.
Refuelling Alan Cobham's Airspeed Courier G-ABXN from
Handley Page W10, 1934
From the close of the war
right through Cobham’s flight, one man was determined to fly
solo from England to Australia, but no one seemed of a mind
to let him. He was a short Australian named Bert Hinkler and
he had served in the Royal Naval Air Service during the war.
When flying to Australia became an
official challenge sponsored by the
Australian government and
supervised by the Royal Aero Club,
Hinkler proposed to make the flight solo in a
Sopwith Dove biplane he
convinced the Sopwith Company to
lend him. The Aero Club sanctioned
some attempts—
and eventually the Smiths claimed the
prize amid fierce competition—but two
fliers were not accepted as
entrants: Bert Hinkler, because
the Club did not believe it
possible to make the long
flight solo; and Charles Kingsford-
Smith, because he proposed to reach
Australia by crossing the
Pacific, and the Aero Club did not
believe that possible either.
Sopwith withdrew the plane when
Hinkler did not qualify, so the
Australian flier spent the next
few years test flying Avro planes
and eventually saved up enough to buy an Avro
Baby, a small plane with a
35-horse- power engine. He
attempted his solo flight to
Australia in May 1920, but had to
abandon his plan in Italy because
hostilities in the Middle East
made that part of the world
impassable.
Four years later, Hinkler now
considered an accomplished aerobatic
flier and racer, bought an
Avro Avian, a slightly larger
plane (still less than half a ton
un-fuelled) that could be outfitted
with extra fuel tanks. Knowing his
solo run to Australia would not be
sanctioned (or even permitted),
Hinkler took off from Croydon, England, on the
morning of February 7, 1928, virtually in secret.
His wife, an Avro
executive, and two passers-by were the
only witnesses. Hinkler
made the London-to-Rome flight in
record time—thirteen hours—but was
arrested when he mistakenly landed
at a military air field. Bailed out by the
British Consul, he continued the next morning,
stopping in Malta, Libya,
India, Burma, and Singapore, and establishing speed records
between London and all those destinations
along the way. (It was a great feat of flying
stamina and navigation, but
Hinkler would always claim,
ingenuously, that his most important piece of
equipment was his alarm
clock.)
By the time he reached Southeast
Asia, news had spread of Hinkler’s flight and a huge
throng was waiting in
Darwin to greet him. He reached
Australia in fifteen days, nearly halving the time it
had taken the Smiths (along
essentially the same route). He
was paraded through the streets of
Darwin and Brisbane, and awarded
medals and cash by the Australian government. The flight had
proved to be more than a stunt. It
showed that a carefully laid-out plan and solid technical
flying could put the Australian continent within two
to three weeks from England, a
short jaunt in that era.
arrival in Australia
Hinkler, by nature a shy man, became an international
celebrity, inspiring fashions,
dishes, and even dance steps.
He hit the headlines again in 1931 when he flew a
de Havilland Puss Moth in
the first solo flight across the
South Atlantic and the first east-west crossing from
Brazil to Senegal, West Africa. Again, he kept his
intentions secret (and again he was detained
by authorities, this time
the Brazilians, who found his papers not in
order). Hinkler died in
January 1933 in Italy while
attempting to set a new England—Australia speed record.
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