1919 England to Australia flight
In 1919 the Australian government offered a prize of £A10,000 for the first Australians in a British aircraft to fly from Great Britain to Australia. Of the six entries that started the race, the winners were pilot Ross Smith, his brother Keith Smith as co-pilot, and mechanics James Bennett and Wally Shiers, in a modified Vickers Vimy bomber.
First Flight from England to Australia by Australians Monument in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
The winning Vickers Vimy, 1919
Sir Ross Macpherson Smith, was an Australian aviator. He and his brother, Sir Keith Macpherson Smith, were the first pilots to fly from England to Australia, in 1919.
Ross Macpherson Smith
Capt. Ross Smith (left) and observer with their Bristol F.2B Fighter, in Palestine, February 1918.
Sir Ross Smith memorial statue in Creswell Gardens, Adelaide
Vickers Vimy, G-EAOU, the aircraft flown by Smith in 1919