National Geographic - The Greatest Flight

October 9 1994 somewhere near the coast of Sumatra an airplane is down hours earlier a passing airliner reported that the plane was on fire and that three men had survived the crash [Music] but the biplane was carrying a four now above it a rescue team circles but all they can see is a blinking flashlight and some letters across the wings g e EI o you God help all of us that's what they said it meant 75 years ago when it was making aviation in history [Music] the waning days of World War one a little more than 16 years have passed since the Wright brothers flight at Kitty Hawk yet now in the skies of a France airplanes are everywhere the men who fly them are considered heroes because so many don't come back [Music] among the pilots who do survive is a 26 year old Australian named Ross Smith as he prepares for the dull routine of peacetime he hears about a contest that will change his life Shane Smith decides to accept the challenge and convinces his brother Keith to come along as navigator on a converted bomber called a Vickers Vimy big slow and sturdy the Vimy can travel 800 miles between refueling and carry up to four men the Smith Brothers chart a course that will take them across stretches of desert mountains and oceans stopping among people who have never even seen an airplane in the public mind their chances of success are slim but if the Vimy does make it it will show the world that air travel is the wave of the future [Music] [Applause] [Music] three quarters of a century later the Vimy is preparing to fly again a warehouse near San Francisco a replica of the old biplane is being assembled for another flight from England to Australia over the same route followed by the Smith Brothers the project is the brainchild of two men Lang Kidd B is a retired Australian Army pilot with a passion for antique planes American stockbroker Peter McMillan loves to fly so much he's invested his life savings in the project I think of the fuselage and the guys that recently touched it was the time when they were in Pisa and Bennett had to get off of it somebody shoved them and he came running along right here and he drive like that and you know we're actually following the original plans as closely as we possibly can we've had to modernize a few things using some steel where they used wood before but essentially the dimensions are gonna be exactly the same as the original more than anything else I think I've got sort of a fascination with being able to really experience what life was like in another time and this is really the closest we will ever have to a true time machine and be able to turn back the clock 75 years ago on the original Vimy the cloth was stitched onto the fuselage by hand they're using the same techniques today [Music] the only significant difference between this femi and his forerunner lies in its power plant instead of using the rolls-royce engines the replica would rely on a pair of Chevy v8 two computers and their backups will regulate the flow of fuel it's taken two years and over a million dollars to get this farm but both pilots think the Smith Brothers story is worth remembering well I think the flight of the Vimy was really one of the most important flights in history in the aircraft covered that huge distance and now I thought it was capable of doing that it was all looked on as a stunt very few people believe that as airplanes would ever arrive in Australia and this is one of the reasons that people decided to do it because of the lack of publicity that Ross has got probably for the most important flight ever after the Wright brothers [Music] July 30th 1994 the Vimy prepares to fly for the first time in the back of everyone's mind is a disturbing bit of history 25 years ago another replica of a Vimy burst into flames while still sitting on the ground no one knows why the same test pilot will be at the Burmese controls for this point Lang will accompany him as copilot the fate of the entire project is riding on what happens next [Music] the Vemma has passed the first test it can fly [Music] the first time I saw it fly I I was extremely nervous because after all that work after you know you're gonna have to work and what John and Danny Wayne after what they'd gone through if anything had gone wrong the first light it would have been a mortal blow [Music] over the next few weeks Peter and Lang take turns at the controls getting used to the biplanes idiosyncrasies her slow reaction to changes in rudder and ailerons the way she bounces over turbulence like a sailboat over waves [Music] but the real test is yet to come in the unpredictable autumn weather now gathering in Europe the Middle East and Asia [Music] on an airstrip outside of London the Smith Brothers prepared to leave England the weather is completely unfit for flying but they feel they have no choice other competitors have already departed and they can't risk falling any further behind only a handful of well-wishers is there to watch the takeoff the 30-day countdown has started [Music] [Applause] [Music] September 1994 the second point of the Vimy is about to get underway this time over a dozen people and two additional airplanes will shadow the Vimy on her journey operations manager mark Rebholz must handle flight clearances out of 36 airports in 16 countries pilot McReynolds will shadow the Vimy in an australian army no man mechanic dan nelson must keep the Vimy running every day for the next month National Geographic photographer Jim Stanfield will be a frequent passenger in the nose gunner seat Peter and Lang will do the flying wedged into a space that barely allows them to move their legs [Music] finally after 200 years of preparation it's time for takeoff you want me dying zipper 47 is now at 4 miles when ready for takeoff it was training up to close one small step for some photocell enough watch Charlie Pro because let me have it leave enough the first leg of the flight is only about 350 miles to a tiny airfield southeast of Paris in the town of tois [Music] the world today is a very different place than it was in 1919 political borders have shifted airspace is restricted skies that once were empty a crisscross buy everything from 747s to f-14s the one thing that is the same is the feel of the Vickers Vimy it's an amazing feeling having your life or lying on an ancient machine like this it's a very physical airplane to fly and and absolutely you know you get a lot of your clues from the wind going through your hair and you know if the plane is side slipping or if you're going too fast or too slow and you don't even really need an airspeed indicator you can tell it all by just the breeze blowing over you [Music] it's it's it's a very powerful feeling because it's so big and stately and heavy and and you can tell that it was meant for or was meant for war it was meant for rough fields and difficult conditions and in all the hazards that obviously Ross Smith would encounter and it it really feels like you're part of the past [Music] [Music] hello studio 1a in broadcasting house this is Sean Moffett and we've crossed the channel without too much incident and we're now in tois in northern France this is our first night stop I'm really amazed that this thing has actually got underway I mean it is such an extraordinary project the Vimy seems to be working perfectly and I think with any luck in about a month's time the Vimy will have got to Australia with us with it for the Smith Brothers the first few days in the skies over Europe are extremely disheartening rain and sleet dogged them every step of the way it's so cold in the cockpit there's sandwiches freeze an entry in Ross Smith's diary sums it up I'm a silly ass for having ever embarked on the flight on day two Peter and Lang may be thinking the same thing the weather was miserable [Applause] bad weather is extremely uncomfortable you know you're sitting there motionless for hour after hour so there's really no way you can move around and warm yourself up you can't straighten your legs you can't really straighten your arms the rain is stinging on your face and you develop a very hazardous sort of fatigue that fatigue is compounded if the plane isn't performing well and on this day it's not the Vimy is having trouble gaining altitude the pilots suspect its cloth covering is becoming a waterlogged adding hundreds of pounds of extra weight they're in a valley surrounded by mountains they can't climb over for two anxious hours they search for an opening through the cloud covered peaks but there is no way out they are trapped then they spot a small airstrip near the top of the mountain while clouds I'm fried rent we can't climb we had just too much weight on board we cannot climb you know we're getting lucky to get a hundred fifty foot a minute what was the best we're getting 150 foot a minute that was really a real live we're doing a 50 foot a minute Andy as they stake the Vimy down for the night it becomes clear that the rain is doing more than just weighing the plane down the vimi's propellers are showing signs of erosion and that's not good the propeller tips are actually going in about 600 miles an hour so you know the rains working on us just like sandpaper but as importantly we'll start soaking in water and these props will get out of balance and you know the vibrations can end up you know shaking the engines to bits we've got to find a way to stay out of the rain [Music] for the competitors in the first race to Australia the expectations of an airplanes performance were far different than they are today [Music] flying was a high-stakes game takeoffs were dangerous landings were dangerous everything connected with flying was dangerous and in 1919 the flying game was taking its toll on the vimi's competition of the six official entrance to the race every plane except the very crashed two crews were killed [Music] but the problem wasn't the pilots it was the planes on what should be a short flight from Pisa to Rome the Vinny shows her limitations Edwin's better the plane so fiercely it almost starts to fly backwards the pilots have no choice but to return to Pisa we had four knots grants plea for miles in air would take us 50 hours to get to run it was howling you could see the Whitecaps and Lange was this thing was buckin him it was it was what do you think dan I was gonna lift it out of my seat we're mostly interested now in the winds as soon as we got about 800 feet high that went shortly after noon the winds on the ground began to pick up as well the skies darken a freak storm is moving in when the storm strikes no one knows that the ropes will hold the airplanes tremendous lift is now working against her Hallel I'm sure method this is we're in the eye of an incredible storm that's four inches of rain in half an hour trees down I was spending by her when I touched him just now and her will actually lift it off the ground without everyone holding her down which you have been flipped over and destroyed in a moment the storm passes over but they can see another thumb to pro Qing fast Peter and Lang make a snap decision to untie the plane and move it to a hangar it's over a mile away they don't have much time you know if it hadn't been for the really fast action of dan and mark and Mick Reynolds and the other guys you know who secured the airplane very quickly you know the thing would have been on its back and end up in somebody's backyard it was that was almost the end of the project right there over the next few days the Vimy flies down the Italian peninsula across the Adriatic to Greece and finally to the port of Souda Bay in Crete from here they will attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea it will take about five hours to reach Africa plenty of time for something to go wrong [Music] well I wonder if this thing if we went in the water if these things in float or if they'd actually I think my first short period is to the bottle I got water look and they take it to the bottom I don't think I'm gonna button mine all the way you know we've got a long way to go over water but you know at least we got radios and we've got a raft Smith Brothers all they had was a couple of inner tubes and and actually they only had those for a while because soon as I got up in the air they expanded and they almost pushed the guys out right out of the cockpit this is our longest unavoidable overwater flight in fact there are longer ones later on straight-line but we can actually vary him with a bit of a dogleg to pick up lender obviously when the Smith Brothers launched out from here they had no air traffic control services they fell in the ocean now and near that they're going to be there and they could well have drowned before a passing fishing boat found them we've got the satellite navigation system which really helped us air traffic control get very excited particularly in going to places like Egypt and we're running very very close to the Libyan border here and we don't really want to finish up and being guys in this afternoon this is the you know the penalty for error on this leg will be greater than any other leg ways it'll be you know be difficult execute a rescue obviously planes got to perform well you know if we have a bad landing crash landing on land you know we'll have some wreckage to mourn over but if we lose an engine today then everything the whole the whole ideal disappear [Music] [Music] on every flight over water there's a point of no return [Music] once you pass it there's no going back [Music] the Vimy crosses that line about three hours out the rest is up to the plane the winds and the pilots [Music] four hours and 50 minutes after takeoff they spot land [Music] the Vimy has passed its most important test so far [Music] for modern travelers accustomed to flying it's hard to imagine a time when looking down at the world was considered astonishing and an aerial photograph was a revelation the Smith Brothers and the crew they were seeing a lot of the world for the first time from the air obviously they made the first aerial photographs of many of the world's great landmarks the Vimy is is giving us such an incredible privilege two floats of leisurely past the great monuments the world [Music] but in 1919 the airspace above the pyramids wasn't restricted today it is and that leads to a moment the Smith Brothers had never faced a zealous Egyptian air defense officer spots the Vimy and her escorts circling the tombs of the Pharaohs and requests permission to shoot them down [Music] the request is denied but the Egyptian bureaucracy which has been around even longer than the pyramids is furious at the airborne interlopers the reprisal comes the next day in a blizzard of red tape the Vimy is grounded most of the morning to complicate matters a blanket of fog has rolled in straight down then you just can kind of keep turning left mr. Zed I spend all my life as a kid wanting to get to Egypt and now I just want to get out of here when Ross and Keith Smith came through here and they had some advantages that we don't have at that stage there weren't any control towers there weren't any landing fees takeoff fees handling fees navigation fees communication fees tower opening fees electricity foods and all the other fees that we now have to pay so in lots of ways they might have pioneered the rip but I think they had it real easy I really do think if we can just get out of Cairo and into Saudi Arabia at least we're gonna have a little more help from the delaying cost them a day the Vimy will take off tomorrow as the Vimy heads ease Arab hospitality begins to assume its more traditional forms wherever they land the travelers are greeted daily in a blur of receptions and press confrence set [Applause] [Music] looked kindly upon us this has been a fantastic afternoon I was talking to one of the Watchmen and I went up and just took him by the hand and said what a wonderful day and he said that traditional Arab greeting he said my country is your country [Music] the Vimy reaches Pakistan and yet another welcoming committee everyone is exhausted but their resolve is about to be tested once again in the neighboring state of Maharashtra new cases of bubonic plague have also been reported but no deaths have been attributed so far to that disease the news isn't good an outbreak of the plague in India is causing a panic flight in and out of the country are being started not allow international flights in and out of Bombay at this time and because of the proximity the vimi's dilemma is compounded by another factor the bureaucracies of Pakistan and India seem to enjoy making life difficult for each other this time it's the Vimy that's caught in the middle the way the whole mess started the original clearance was for Karachi to Delhi on an established airway that went up to a point up in this area and then proceeded at our leisure up to Delhi which would have worked perfectly the Indians didn't want that the Indians gave is a clearance from crossing the border here happened to Delhi so we have an Indian clearance from here to here Pakistan clearance from here to here Salah see we had a bit of 300 more gap between the table border crossings so here we are in the middle of the day the sun's going down and nothing's done shortly before dawn the next morning after long negotiations the necessary permissions have been obtained the Vimy has finally been cleared to enter India [Music] [Music] from the air at least India couldn't be less threatening over the city of Agra they circled that Taj Mahal which Ross Smith called a matchless white jewel reclining in a setting of nature's emeralds [Music] [Applause] at the Delhi Airport the Vimy is created by dozens of schools oppressed kids next up my and more known as Burma when the Smith Brothers stopped there it is a country that has welcomed few visitors in the last 30 years and now it has closed its borders to all incoming flights from India the vimi's support planes are in the air when they hear the news they asked my Anwar to make a special exception in their case the Nomad is running low on fuel when the answer comes back [Music] [Applause] the pilots shut down one engine to save fuel [Music] ordered to turn back they pretend their radio is having trouble receiving transmissions part of the crew sits in an open door keeping an eye out for jet fighters Mayan Lord has a reputation for defending its borders [Music] when they land in Yangon no one quite knows what kind of reception to expect the crew is hustled into quarantine but it's not as bad as they feared but I guess the plague story's over now everyone's been through a health check here at Yangon and everyone said their glands felt which is the nicest thing that's happened to us in about a month and the plague stories finished well for the first time in weeks Peter and Lang take time to sightsee at the Shwedagon temple [Music] the city hasn't changed much since the Smith Brothers touched down on a racetrack the first airplane ever to land in Rangoon [Music] this profoundly Buddhist country is a good place for the weary traveler to rest and contemplate the long roads the way I think the main things from now on I think we're gonna be very much in command of the expedition and I think we'll be able to sort of set the pace and I think we'll have a minimum of bureaucracy and things like that so you know I think I think we're the whole the whole path will be a lot smoother from here on famous last words with less than a week to go until they reach Australia the very starboard engine begins to act up it's burning too much oil and seems sluggish probably nothing to worry about as long as there's a flat place to land always probably yes they were all fuel very ice the crew fiddles with the engine every time their memories on the ground no one can quite figure out what or how serious the problem is run in there's no fuel running out of it but probably the pumps in this I can get through to the buddy what do you think's gonna wrong with this thing I mean cause it seems to me like if we got the well parts are down below 65 pounds it might stop the consumption we can't do that we can't the right gearbox seems to be getting warmer all the time and you know we don't really know if it's a vibration related or just the gearbox itself is breaking in or I don't really know what the problem is of the gearbox but you know we're gonna go ahead and go anyway I don't think there's anything unsafe about it but they said we we don't have a good single engine performance so you know we're to lose power over the water we got a problem the problem begins to manifest itself the very next day [Music] they're losing altitude fast the lemming has to land now anyway [Music] can we take one of those off my pewters and just flip it over on the right engine once again everyone can only guess what's causing the starboard engine to malfunction I think it's something to do with the connections cuz they're both reacting in the same way it just doesn't seem like a computer problem to me the computers a bit like either works or doesn't work eventually they decide to be mapped the computers and there's nothing to do but continue on to Singapore [Music] neither pilot wants to admit it but they're beginning to lose confidence in their plane the Smith Brothers Vinny on the other hand is still rowing well as long as it's in the air it's being on the ground that's causing problems in Surabaya the Vimy becomes hopelessly stuck in the mud but with the help of the locals they're able to build a makeshift runway out of bamboo borrowed from the walls of the villagers huts Australia is less than a week away [Music] put all four pops on okay are you sure we know we want to run too much air through that pump if it's only that's it airplanes are moody you know they're like people and they have good moods and bad moods and she's definitely been in a bad mood and actually yesterday was downright foul mood most of them are you know circumstances that are you know they've gone behind beyond minor complaints to you know adding out arguments I just I wish it was running like it was before I mean we've done everything we could we can today we've gone right through everything we change the oil filters change fuel filters changed all these spark plugs it's just said she's in a bad mood and it you know been riding horn next stop Jakarta Peter will be of the controls with Lang beside him and Dan Nelson in the rear Jim Stanfield will sit on the nose of the plane [Music] the Vimy head south over fields been clear-cut and burned the visibility is terrible it's even hard to breathe it's supposed to be a seven-hour flight but the Vimy never shows up [Music] this is Jakarta the Vimy has crashed apparently what we know at the moment is that it's about 150 miles from here the aircraft itself is apparently a burnt-out wreck the made a call was picked up shortly after 3:00 in the afternoon a Singapore Airlines pilot reports that the Vimy is on fire and adds a chilling footman there are three survivors but the Vimy was carrying four [Music] it has taken hours to round up the crew and get the Nomad the area behind the back at the airport the rest of the crew waits for news the only thing the Indonesians are trying to determine right now here is whether it's three people or four the Sun is already beginning to slip below the horizon as the Nomad approaches the area where the Vimy went down smoke blankets the ground soon will be dark and they don't even know what they're looking for [Music] for this [Music] and then faintly the disembodied shape of a wing and suddenly there she is we're flying a few hundred feet above the ground there's a little mist and suddenly this extraordinary sight of the top wing of the Vimy just poking out through the mist we can see those letters Gea o u gourd elf all of us as they said back in 1919 standing out as clear as anything and a twinkling light somebody down at the aircraft flashing a light SS as we fly past moments later make raises Peter on the radio the news couldn't be better all four men have escaped the crash without so much as a scratch [Music] the aircraft's okay it's the right engines completely shattered and apparently it's completely blown up and it has to be replaced are you going to carry on with your mission yes okay do you know how long that will take four or five days it has taken two days to carve a temporary airstrip out of the rice paddy so the support planes can land but they've had a lot of help the downed Vimy has become a major attraction among local villagers this will be the first time the pilots have seen the rest of their crew [Applause] [Applause] three times worse yesterday did you really yeah just trying to hack out the airstrip and we were trying to you know get the motor out with just these put up a little hand tools yeah I know it was a very very bad listen to this thing no I was no indication really and the engine just stopped dead we couldn't get it going again so we had to pick somewhere to land we picked this ride that's the road back over there and we got close to the road that looked like we're gonna be able to land in it by time we got close to it there was no way we could land and had a ditch big ditch on either side I was really worried about Jim because Tim was in the nose Jim was taking pictures for the whole thing and I kept on Jim sit down Jim sit down Jim smile you know get your belts on we're gonna crash you know and he wouldn't they wouldn't listen and he buckled up and the only thing I could do was to turn that camera backwards and start shooting them from back and you could see that one prop was stopped and Lange had taken his glasses off and that's probably the only thing that worried me because Hank never takes his ray-bans off so I just said that we're gonna go in the field like you thought I'm going to listen well guess we got to go in the field so I had a power and then things just slid to the right really strongly about three hundred and sixty feet later we came to a stop I mean all in one piece he was as Jim put it incredible now we need to find some way to get a backhoe or something to get the the engine out yeah good job no engine in good job this is what's it's a mess in it yeah the Vimy and the rice paddy is the biggest thing ever to hit this isolated section of sumatra vendors do a brisk business in sodas and popsicles there's even a viewing stand these people just stare to their heart's content it's unbelievable [Music] [Music] why the big hole [Music] we are joining you from what I'm sure is an absolute first for Radio 5 we're near a place called Dalian Batu in southeastern Sumatra and we're at an airfield would you believe I'm standing beside the Vimy a few days ago this was just scrub land it is now an airfield I'm gonna ask Lang kid be formally to declare this open Liang well do that Sean with the authority vested in me by nobody or hereby declare Vimy field open for us [Applause] [Music] [Music] here we go the Vimy is spazzing her take off run you got the tail wheel up and [Music] telling the two after four days here struck burning in Spain there what a wonderful sight [Music] after three days of repairs in Jakarta the Vimy moves east over the islands of Indonesia [Music] [Music] touchdown on the island of Timor the next landing will be in Australia I don't know well today is really a it's a culmination of several years work you know for everybody that's been involved you know I think that you know we've got ourselves so caught up in the day-to-day operations of getting the plane I know it seems like a year ago that we were in France and Pisa and all those events that happened you know just can't be distracted by you know the greater things we have to consider the lesser things which is we have to move this airplane another four hundred fifty four miles over water [Music] [Music] as long as people want to spend their money on something other than one women and song and and recreate history I think it's money well spent and as I pointed out to Peter when he's on his deathbed all the Ferraris here at the front of his yesterday I met her damn but look back on the challenges that he accepted in the things that he did and that's where the satisfaction will be [Music] when I first saw the coast of Australia it was the most powerful feeling of relief that we had succeeded and that the project it wasn't one of those those great ideas that that might have been that in fact and throughout all the adversity we had done it we had created a time machine and we had seen the world as no one else had in 75 years [Music] when the Smith Brothers Vimy touched down in Darwin on December 10th 1919 it became the first plane from another country ever to land in Australia the flight had taken them just under 28 days the 10,000 pounds with about a half a million dollars today was theirs and there she is she's touched down on Australian soil the Smith divides the prize equaling with his brother and the two mechanics they are greeted as national heroes having proved that a machine used mostly for destruction could help bring people together as well as far as I'm concerned that that you know we won the penthouse bounds the Peter and Lang and the rest of the memory crew the rewards are different the flight offers us a reminder of what goes into all of great human endeavors vision courage ingenuity persistence in the face of overwhelming odds [Music] without these things history would never be made war worth remembering [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Zac Yates

Views: 4,414

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Vickers Vimy, Lang Kidby, Peter McMillan, Ross Smitth, Keith Smith, Smith Brothers, Vimy replica

Id: vhv7HGH4Qi0

Length: 52min 5sec (3125 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 07 2018