Those magnificent men (and women) in their flying machines

Those magnificent men (and women) in their flying machines 

After the end of World War I, Australia had plenty of adventurous young men who had learnt to fly an aeroplane during the war. Before long, a few Australian women started to join them and learn those same skills.

People thinking about World War I think mostly of the Western Front, but a lot of Australians served in the Light Horse around Palestine, and because riding a plane is like riding a horse, some of them transferred to the Australian Flying Corps. (The proof is found in odd places: in the cavalry, majors and lieutenant-colonels are squadron leaders and wing commanders: think about it!)

Anyhow, many young Australian men moved from riding over the deserts to riding above them. Coming from a land where distance is the great enemy, young men flying over vast distances in the Middle East would naturally think of shortening similar distances at home, using aircraft. In the earliest days, the way to make people aware of aviation was to conduct races, but first, the aviators needed explorers to show them the way

In August and September of 1919, Paul McGinness and Hudson Fysh surveyed part of an official air race route from Katherine (Northern Territory) to Longreach (Queensland). They did this from the ground, driving a Model T Ford, and part of their role was identifying places where landings could be made, and ensuring adequate fuel supplies.

Prime Minister Billy Hughes had arranged a prize of £10,000 for the first Australians to fly an aircraft from England to Australia, around 13,500 km, but to win, they had to do it in less than 30 days. The winners were two brothers, Captain Ross Smith (RAF), Lieutenant Keith Smith (AFC) and two sergeants, Shiers and Bennett. The Smiths were knighted, and the sergeants were both made air force officers for their efforts.

Other Australians were blocked from competing, because the race was held under the rules of the Royal Aero Club in Britain. Bert Hinkler had been flying with the Royal Naval Air Service, and wanted to fly alone. The Aero Club decided that was too unsafe. Charles Kingsford-Smith (ex-RAF) had a team of four, but they could not take part because none of them was a good navigator. Back then, many pilots navigated by following roads, rivers or railway lines, but for long distances, especially over sea, somebody on the plane had to be able to navigate by taking sightings on the stars or the sun.

The Smiths and their two sergeants made it to Darwin on December 10, 1919, in just over 27 days. Bert Hinkler saved his money and bought an Avro Avian aeroplane, completing the same route, making it to Darwin in 1928, in just 15½ days.

Charles Kingsford-Smith wanted to fly a plane across the Pacific, and teamed up with another Australian, Charles Ulm. Trying to attract sponsors, they set a record for flying around Australia, taking 10 days 5½ hours in 1927. Stunts and publicity meant everything to the aviators — and aviatrixes, as people called the women pilots.

By 1934, when another London-Melbourne air race was being planned, several women were likely starters, though 19-year-old Nancy Bird (later Nancy Bird Walton) was thought to be less likely to start, because she lacked experience.

In the late 1980s, I took a pioneer Australian aviator, Lores Bonney, on a night visit around the museum I worked in. Her family told me she was past it, as blind as a bat and as deaf as a post, but after a battle of wills, I persuaded her into the wheelchair, declared myself her servant, and we took off, at her imperious directions.

She was a proud old lady, and only agreed to ride in a wheelchair so I could show her more. It was strenuous (I was wearing a dinner suit), but I knew a bit about her and wanted to get more. She was one of our last explorer-adventurers, flying around Australia in 1932, and many other triumphs. In spite of what her family said, she could see Meissen porcelain at 20 metres, she heard and responded to my whispers, and gave me details on how early aviators prepared a new route.

They were very much explorers, and she even researched bush tucker before flying around Australia. In fact, she did what the more effective explorers did. She went out and learned from Aborigines about bush tucker, because she knew she would need it if her plane failed.

She told me also why she flew as “Mrs. Harry Bonney”: she could not have children, and wanted to make her husband’s name live on. While she mentioned that her wealthy husband bought her aircraft for her, she did not tell me that her cousin, Bert Hinkler, had taken her up for her first flight. I found that out later, and I also found these details of her round-Australia flight:

Mrs. Harry Bonney, of Brisbane, who is but comparatively young in the aeronautical world, having completed two years' of flying experience this month, and who is now on a round-Australia solo flight, passed through Longreach on Tuesday morning, arriving at 9.40 a.m. from Blackall … Mrs. Bonney has already two creditable flight to her credit, having flown from Brisbane to Bundaberg and back in a day, whilst in December of last year she flew from Brisbane to Wangaratta. She is using the same Gipsy Moth on the present flight, and which bears a silver plate inscribed with Flight-Lieut. Hill's signature. The machine was used by him on his flight to Australia.
— The Longreach Leader (Qld), 20 August 1932, 15, http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/37232026

Flying towards Longreach, she noticed a leaking petrol pump, and put down at a homestead, only to find that it was deserted. Fortunately, the plane had landed in a good open stretch and, after placing her handkerchief on a mimosa bush for wind directions, got off safely and flew to Macfarlane homestead proper where assistance was given by Mr. Doyle. In landing there she used a windmill for wind direction…

She states she was about early next morning, in preparation for the run [from Blackall] to Longreach and Cloncurry, but … preparatory to taking off, a flock of galahs flew across her path, and alighted in front of the plane. In her own words … it was a pretty sight, but just too nerve-racking at that particular moment, so she roared the engine and frightened them away…

Her approach to Longreach was unostentatious, probably no one outside the Press, the Shell Company representatives, and Qantas, realising that she had arrived and departed. The aviatrix, who had been flying by compass course, struck the Central Western railroad at Ilfracombe, which, by the way, she mistook for Longreach, but her observant eye picked up the line of steel, which she followed, to eventually land on Qantas aerodrome.
— The Longreach Leader (Qld), 20 August 1932, 15, http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/37232026

When she flew solo from Brisbane to London in 1938, she landed and was photographed, perched on the edge of the cockpit, looking down her nose at something, and this photograph can be seen if you use a search engine for images of Lores Bonney. I told her she looked a bit annoyed.

We had stopped so I could take a rest, and for once, I was facing her as I sat on a seat. Her eyes twinkled as she replied in cut-glass accents: “Of course I was annoyed! The man asked me where I was from, and I was thinking, you silly little man, don’t you know that VH on the fuselage means Australia?”

Oral history can conserve what would otherwise be lost, but the history gatherer must know how to ‘oral’ in just the right way. I feel that if I, too, had not been using my best cut-glass accent, I might never have winkled out those matters.