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Charles Kingsford Smith
Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith (9 February 18978 November 1935), nicknamed Smithy, was an Australian aviation pioneer. He piloted the first transpacific flight and the first flight between Australia and New Zealand. Kingsford Smith was born in Brisbane. He grew up in Sydney, leaving school at the age of 16 and becoming an engineering apprentice. He joined the Australian Army in 1915 and was a motorcycle despatch rider on the Gallipoli campaign. He later transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and was awarded the Military Cross in 1917 after being shot down. After the war's end, Kingsford Smith worked as a barnstormer in England and the United States before returning to Australia in 1921. He subsequently joined West Australian Airways as one of the country's first commercial pilots. In 1928, Kingsford Smith completed the first transpacific flight, a three-leg journey from California to Brisbane via Hawaii and Fiji. He and his co-pilot Charles Ulm became celebrities, tog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brisbane
Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South East Queensland metropolitan region, which encompasses a population of around 3.8 million. The Brisbane central business district is situated within a peninsula of the Brisbane River about from its mouth at Moreton Bay, a bay of the Coral Sea. Brisbane is located in the hilly floodplain of the Brisbane River Valley between Moreton Bay and the Taylor Range, Taylor and D'Aguilar Range, D'Aguilar mountain ranges. It sprawls across several local government in Australia, local government areas, most centrally the City of Brisbane, Australia's most populous local government area. The demonym of Brisbane is ''Brisbanite''. The Traditional Owners of the Brisbane a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transpacific Flight
A transpacific flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Pacific Ocean from Asia or Australia to North America, Central America, or South America, or ''vice versa''. Such flights have been made by fixed-wing aircraft, balloons and other types of aircraft. Though less common than transatlantic flights, transpacific flights have been commercially available since the mid-1930s and have been used for transport of cargo and passengers across the Pacific Ocean. The time and distance of transpacific flights are longer than transatlantic flights, thanks to the much broader width of the Pacific. The first transpacific flight occurred in 1928, nine years after the first transatlantic flight in 1919. History In 1927, Ernie Smith and Emory Bronte attempted the first civilian transpacific flight bound for Maui, Hawaii starting from Oakland, California. The duo "flew 25 hours and two minutes at 6,000 feet in a single-engine Travel Air 5000 monoplane, but ran out of gas and safely cra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Depression In Australia
Australia suffered badly during the period of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and rapidly spread worldwide. As in other nations, Australia suffered years of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement. The Australian economy and foreign policy largely rested upon its place as a primary producer within the British Empire, and Australia's important export industries, particularly primary products such as wool and wheat, suffered significantly from the collapse in international demand. Unemployment reached a record high of around 30% in 1932, and gross domestic product declined by 10% between 1929 and 1931. There were also incidents of civil unrest, particularly in Australia's largest city, Sydney. Though Australian Communist and far right movements were active in the Depression, they remained largely on the periphery of Austra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Air Race
Air racing is a type of motorsport that involves airplanes or other types of aircraft that compete over a fixed course, with the winner either returning the shortest time, the one to complete it with the most points, or to come closest to a previously estimated time. History The first 'heavier-than-air' air race was held on 23 May 1909 - the Prix de Lagatinerie, at the Port-Aviation airport south of Paris, France. Four pilots entered the race, two started, but nobody completed the full race distance; though this was not unexpected, as the rules specified that whoever travelled furthest would be the winner if no-one completed the race. Léon Delagrange, who covered slightly more than half of the ten laps was declared the winner. Some other minor events were held before the ''Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne'' in 22–29 August 1909 at Reims, France. This was the first major international flying event, drawing the most important aircraft makers and pilots of the era, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian National Airways (1930)
Australian National Airways was a short-lived Australian airline, founded on 3 January 1929 by Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm. The airline began operations in January 1930 with five Avro 618 Tens, similar aircraft to Kingsford Smith's famous ''Southern Cross''. However, the airline folded in 1931 after the crash of VH-UMF '' Southern Cloud'' in the Australian Alps between Sydney and Melbourne, and VH-UNA ''Southern Sun'' in Malaya. Aircraft :VH-UMF ''Southern Cloud'' ( crashed March 1931) :VH-UMG ''Southern Star'' :VH-UMH ''Southern Sky'' :VH-UMI ''Southern Moon'' :VH-UNA ''Southern Sun'' (crashed November 1931) On the airline's dissolution, ''Southern Moon'' was bought by Ulm, refitted for long-distance flight and reregistered as VH-UXX ''Faith in Australia''. The other two aircraft were sold to Keith Virtue's New England Airways. See also * List of defunct airlines of Australia * Aviation in Australia Aviation in Australia began in the 1920s with the forma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perth
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is part of the South West Land Division of Western Australia, with most of the metropolitan area on the Swan Coastal Plain between the Indian Ocean and the Darling Scarp. The city has expanded outward from the original British settlements on the Swan River, upon which the city's central business district and port of Fremantle are situated. Perth is located on the traditional lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people, where Aboriginal Australians have lived for at least 45,000 years. Captain James Stirling founded Perth in 1829 as the administrative centre of the Swan River Colony. It was named after the city of Perth in Scotland, due to the influence of Stirling's patron Sir George Murray, who had connections with the area. It gained city statu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metropolitan area known as Greater Melbourne, comprising an urban agglomeration of 31 local municipalities, although the name is also used specifically for the local municipality of City of Melbourne based around its central business area. The metropolis occupies much of the northern and eastern coastlines of Port Phillip Bay and spreads into the Mornington Peninsula, part of West Gippsland, as well as the hinterlands towards the Yarra Valley, the Dandenong and Macedon Ranges. It has a population over 5 million (19% of the population of Australia, as per 2021 census), mostly residing to the east side of the city centre, and its inhabitants are commonly referred to as "Melburnians". The area of Melbourne has been home to Aboriginal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Lyon (aviator)
American Harry Lyon (1885?–1963?), was the navigator for the first flight across the Pacific in 1928 with Charles Kingsford Smith (as pilot), Charles Ulm (as co-pilot) and fellow-American James Warner as the (radio operator) in the Southern Cross. According to the ''Spokane Daily Chronicle'', he was a son of US Navy Rear Admiral Henry W. Lyon and served as a lieutenant commander on the transport and as first lieutenant aboard the cruiser during World War I. However, an article of uncertain reliability but much greater detail states that though he was accepted into the United States Naval Academy in 1905, he flunked out and worked in the Merchant Marine, eventually rising to captain of the S.S. ''Likliki''. After the pioneering flight, he took up rum running in San Francisco, California. References External links 1928 photograph of Warner and Lyon National Library of Australia Southern Cross crew welcomed--outtakes University of South Carolina Moving Image Research C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Warner (aviator)
James Warner (1891–1970) was the radio operator on the aircraft ''Southern Cross'' piloted by Charles Kingsford Smith for the first trans-Pacific flight in 1928, during which radio was first used successfully on a long distance flight. Early life Warner was born near Lawrence, Kansas, in 1891. His parents divorced during his early childhood. His mother cared for his two sisters but their father took James and his two brothers to an orphanage in Wichita and left them there. At the age of five, he was adopted by a German family named Oswald and spent most of the rest of his childhood living and working on their farm. He also spent about a year in Germany with his adopted family. James attended both local German and English language schools in Lawrence through eighth grade and reportedly made friends easily. At age fourteen he left home and went to Wichita where he found work in a butcher shop, refusing his adopted father's pleas to return home. After learning from someone how to m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Ulm
Charles Thomas Philippe Ulm (18 October 1898 – 3 December 1934) was a pioneer Australian aviator. He partnered with Charles Kingsford Smith in achieving a number of aviation firsts, serving as Kingsford Smith's co-pilot on the first transpacific flight and the first flight between Australia and New Zealand. He and two others disappeared near Hawaii in 1934 while undertaking a test flight for an air service between Australia and the United States. Early life Ulm was born on 18 October 1898 in Middle Park, Victoria. He was the third son of Ada Emma (née Greenland) and Emile Gustave Ulm. His father was a French-born artist and his mother was an Australian. Ulm spent his early years in Melbourne, moving to Sydney as a child where his family settled in Mosman. He was educated at state schools. World War I Ulm joined the AIF in September 1914, enlisting under the name "Charles Jackson" and lying about his age. He fought and was wounded at Gallipoli in 1915, and on the Western F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Australian Airways
West Australian Airways was an Australian airline based in Geraldton, Western Australia. Established on 5 December 1921 as Western Australian Airways by World War I pilot Norman Brearley, it was the first airline in Australia to establish a scheduled air service. The first service left Geraldton on 2 November 1922. On 12 June 1936, West Australian Airways was purchased by Adelaide Airways for £25,000. In July that year, it became part of Australian National Airways. History Following World War I, Norman Brearley, who had served with the Royal Flying Corps, returned to Australia in 1919. He brought with him two Avro 504J aircraft. In May 1921, the Federal Government advertised for tenders for a subsidised air-mail & passenger contract, operating a weekly service between Geraldton and Derby. Brearley submitted multiple submissions and on 2 August 1921, was advised that one of his tenders had been accepted. Brearley then set about hiring 5 pilots; Val Abbott, Arthur Blake, Bob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barnstorming
Barnstorming was a form of entertainment in which stunt pilots performed tricks individually or in groups that were called flying circuses. Devised to "impress people with the skill of pilots and the sturdiness of planes," it became popular in the United States during the Roaring Twenties. Barnstormers were pilots who flew throughout the country to sell airplane rides and perform stunts. Charles Lindbergh first began flying as a barnstormer. Barnstorming was the first major form of civil aviation in the history of aviation. History Background The Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss had early flying exhibition teams, with solo flyers like Lincoln Beachey and Didier Masson also popular before World War I, but barnstorming did not become a formal phenomenon until the 1920s. The first barnstormer, taught to fly by Curtiss in 1909, was one Charles Foster Willard, who is also credited as the first to be shot down in an airplane when an annoyed farmer broke his propeller firing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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