The First Men To Fly Across The Globe | The Greatest Air Race | Spark

alright [Music] when you fly on the space shuttle as a crew member you're allowed to fly mementos of personal significance on my first flight on endeavour i wanted to fly something that would commemorate this epic flight so i chose to fly these the wings of ross and keith smith it was a salute to these fearless aviators who inspired me to believe the sky is never the limit because in 1919 they set out in this a vicar's vimy bomber to achieve a seemingly impossible feat the first ever flight halfway around the world from england to australia [Music] it was probably one of the most important flights ever after the wright brothers a daring air race 11 000 miles across dangerous and uncharted country the legacy is astonishingly important they lay the foundations for the types of long-haul flights we now take for granted it proved that aircraft could be as effective in peacetime as they had been in war the challenges they faced were monumental and uh you know we'd probably just take it for granted but without those pioneers we would not have the ability to do what we do today and it was one giant leap in the quest to conquer unflown skies i think it's incredibly significant it it actually reminds me of apollo it was the moon landing of its day i really believe that just as extraordinary a century on it seems these pioneering trailblazers have been all but forgotten and i'm determined to find out why [Music] today some 2 million people fly between england and australia each year we're able to cross the face of the globe within 17 hours thanks to a network of open skies modern airports and aircraft that are fast safe and comfortable so it's hard to believe that the first transplanted flight was made a hundred years ago and it took 28 days to complete amazingly it was done in an open cockpit world war one bomber by four young australians almost unbelievably ross smith's crew navigated home with just maps and a compass they flew over deserts mountains and jungles landing in places that had never even seen an aircraft and after beating five other entrants and a rogue french crew they won a huge cash prize along with worldwide fame [Applause] [Music] ross smith became a household name as did his navigator and brother keith and their two mechanics jim bennett and wally shires [Music] but the price paid for this epoch making flight was high a triumph overshadowed by a devastating toll in early 1919 just months after the armistice australian prime minister billy hughes joined other world leaders at the paris peace talks as the negotiations stretched on he often chose the convenience of flying between france and london it dawned on him that aircraft which had changed the rules of modern warfare could also change his country's future billy hughes had become enamored with aviation he could see it as a way to bring australia's emerging economy closer to that of britain the mother country the question was how could he show that such flights were even feasible to that end he came up with a bold and simple plan [Music] the australian government has decided to offer 10 000 pounds for the first successful flight from london to australia in a british-built machine manned by australians air races were becoming all the rage in 1919 [Music] in june of that year british war veterans john alcock and arthur brown astounded the world flying non-stop across the atlantic in the vicars vimy their vicar's vimy took off 1900 miles of atlantic between them and ireland they did have a somewhat inglorious nose in the landing however the airplane stood 16 hours 27 minutes later the old converted bomber averaged 111 miles an hour the reaction was immense they were they were heroes they were the astronauts of their age they were lorded they were paraded and they were they became famous they were celebrities they were some of the first celebrities of the the air age [Music] that flight was almost two thousand miles the proposed route for the england to australia air race was eleven thousand miles more than five times longer [Music] our story begins here in outback south australia on this vast sheep farming property known as muturu it's one of the hottest and driest places on the driest continent on earth so james just how big is this holding yes andy i can give you an idea of the size it's around about six million acres in area uh in the northeast of south australia um which in other terms is about twenty four thousand square kilometers [Music] keith and ross smith were born and raised here to scottish parents along with a younger brother colin the unforgiving environment fostered toughness and resourcefulness qualities which would serve them well in later life three young boys the smith brothers growing up here what would they have been doing as young lads growing up in an environment like this given the sort of chaps they were they would have had a very active lifestyle they would have been able to go out walking climbing the big gum trees in the creek below the main homestead area they would have done rabbit trapping and also a lot of horse riding too i would think because there was lots of horses here in those days and that was very much a part of their skill base ross smith was a talented sportsman and rider joining the australian mountain cadets as a 17 year old [Music] in 1914 at the outbreak of war he enlisted and set sail on the first troop convoy from south australia to egypt [Music] so ross smith didn't actually become a pilot at the beginning of the war he initially enlisted in the light horse and went overseas um and actually spent six months at gallipoli uh with the light horse was exposed to all of the horrors of trench warfare that that we now know was part of the gallipoli experience soon any attempted observation over the rim of the parapet attracts heavy sniper fire to these hazards are added those of poor rations incessant work tension and the disease brought by the flies you see here all weakening the man ross smith proved courageous and calm under fire but his true talents would be realized in the middle east where he entered a radical new field of combat one that required an altogether different form of daring during the early stages of world war one a great deal of research was carried out on aircraft and both sides realized its military value the flimsy pre-war flying machine quickly became a fast and efficient weapon in 1916 ross smith signed up with the newly formed australian flying corps as he said in a letter to his family i want excitement and to feel like i'm doing something i can't help liking risky jobs within six months he had his pilot swings this footage was actually taken from onboard ross smith's bristol fighter as he took off from the australian's desert base in palestine he was appointed as captain as a flight commander so essentially that put him in charge of a flight of six airplanes and their crews over a hundred mechanics and ground staff quite a significant responsibility for a man who was only at that stage in his mid-20s ross smith had the combination of personal qualities that made him not only a very good leader but an outstanding pilot and he was someone who pushed the boundaries of what was possible in terms of what the technology of the day could do but also in terms of thinking about the future so he had a very broad conception for what aviation might mean in the future and he wanted to be at the forefront of that and he pushed it and he was willing to risk his life it wasn't long before ross smith was making his mark the apocryphal story is that he had the first confirmed shooting down of an enemy aircraft by an australian aircraft operator is that true yeah ross came across a german aircraft and actually went head-to-head with each other both firing [Music] ross kept a diary for part of his time in the australian flying corps uh making detailed daily entries he's describing that he and ellis who was one of the other pilots in number one squadron they were out on patrol on one two ways over the year near assani and beersheba a two-seater and an albatross scout came along we were above them so chased them ellis dived on the scout first and then i took him and i got on his tail we had three rounds and he hit me in the face he was wounded yeah a bullet fragment uh bounced off the the cowling of his aircraft and went through his cheek broke teeth um it could have been fatal yes we're very close to it uh he then says he turned for home and did a hundred and ten miles all the way we were just fast for an airplane like that he was running yes yeah so it seems to be from the records the the first uh confirmed victory uh scored by an australian pilot in the first world war such was his reputation that lawrence of arabia called on his skills as a pilot there was one point i think in may 1918 when ross effectively i acted as a taxi for lawrence lawrence was a a british officer working in liaison with an arab army in the trans jordan and ross ferried him from palestine back to his camp he did so again in september and there was a famous incident where he was having breakfast with lawrence and um and some other australian airmen out in the desert um and some german aircraft attacked the camp and ross and some of the other australian pilots jumped in their bristol fighters and took off and had a dog fight and shot all the germans down before returning to finish their breakfast with two military crosses and the awarding of a third distinguished flying cross ross smith became one of the most decorated british empire pilots of the war aviation was clearly in the blood ross's older brother keith also became a pilot he joined the royal flying corps in england serving as an instructor for trainee pilots wartime flying was certainly high risk not only in the new battlefield of air-to-air combat but just simply getting from a to b yet when peace came ross and keith smith were hooked on aviation and looking for new challenges ross had dreamed of flying home since he earned his wings and the great air race proved irresistible so jim you're a former rwaf pilot with a lot of missions behind you um at the end of the first war ross and keith smith must have been exhausted from what they'd been through so what do you think made them then take that moment to step up to this huge challenge of flying the vimy from england to australia the only thing i can put it down to is an absolute love of aviation and flying and an absolute love of a challenge you know they were the sort of people that really wanted an adventure wanted to do it we wanted to achieve things and i think that's probably what drove them to do it [Music] the smith brothers weren't the only aviators keen to fly back from england to australia after the war rather than endure a lengthy sea voyage home five more teams signed up for the high stakes challenge in aircraft of all shapes and sizes george matthews and thomas k in a sopwith wallaby roger douglas and leslie ross with an alliance p2 seabird they named the endeavour cedric howell and george fraser in a martinside a1 ray pera and john mcintosh in an air code dh9 and another crew of four in an ungainly looking blackburn kangaroo valdemar rendell david williams gansey potts and hubert wilkins who later achieved fame as a polar explorer the air race rule stated teams could take off at any time of their choosing after september 1919 but they had to make it back to australia within 30 days later single-engine planes needed less fuel but they only had two men to share the burden of flying navigating and performing essential maintenance four man crews were able to spread the duties but the heavier twin-engine aircraft needed longer airstrips for landing and takeoff ross smith was banking on his team of four and he knew he had a good chance of winning he had a reliable crew including his brother keith who would navigate and mechanics jim bennett and wally both of whom he'd worked with during the war the one thing ross smith didn't have was a plane [Applause] [Music] then a couple of well-connected british friends petitioned the vicar's aircraft company this is the famous brooklyn's motor racing circuit in waybridge just outside of london now you might ask what has this got to do with our story of the great aries well it turns out the vicus vimy was built right here [Applause] [Music] the smith team spent six weeks at brooklands while workers frantically prepared the world war one bomber for the long flight the machine was an ordinary standard vickers vimy bomber similar to that used by sir john alcock for the transatlantic flight and apart from the installing of an extra petrol tank we made practically no alterations the vimy was powered by two rolls-royce eagle eight engines each of 360 horsepower now i may tell you this is the truth i said to benny i said my god benny i said fancy fly trying to fly this to australia then he said well what are we to do well i said i don't know but i said she'd never last half the journey then he said well he said that's uh you know he said you never know [Music] the actual vickers vimy flown by ross smith is now displayed in a hangar which i first saw as a young boy growing up in adelaide the capital of south australia it was state of the art technology for 1919 although today in the 21st century it looks anything but pilot lang kidby knows the design of this iconic plane inside out well wow well the first thing that strikes you is there's not a lot of equipment in there there's not a lot of instrumentation is there no there's very very little a lot of switches and uh fuel control systems oil control hand pump fuel pump in 1994 he flew a replica vimy along the route of the great air race the other thing that strikes you is there is only one yoke modern aircraft of course have two yokes for sharing the flying load but there's only one in this airplane which means the pilot has to fly the whole shift yep once once you're behind the wheel in this uh you're stuck there for the whole flight and normally they would only carry one pilot they would either have a navigator a bomb aimer in action or in ross and keith smith's place they actually had two pilots one doing the navigation and one doing the fly yeah but he'd have to fly the whole leg once once you started you were there for eight nine ten hours and you were stuck with it there was nothing you could do about it it was really quite state-of-the-art even though by modern day standards you know we look at it and think wow how did they ever get to australia in that the vimy rolled out of the vickers factory at brooklands with a new civil registration the crew joked about an alternative meaning g-e-a-o-u god help all of us this is where the competitors took off on the great air race it was a small airstrip on hounslow heath not far from modern day heathrow airport news crews were on hand in england to record history in the making but from then on the race would be captured on film by the crews themselves kodak had supplied a camera to each team offering a lucrative prize for the best shots taken along the way like an early form of social media air ministry weather report class 5 unfit for all flying snow lay on the ground on the morning of november 12 1919 with an ominous warning of more icy weather to come but ross smith knew that two planes were already well ahead of them including an unofficial french crew this was a fascinating part of the race because before any of the australian crews took off in mid-october a frenchman by the name of etienne paule took off with his mechanic from paris and when ross smith was ready to leave england poulet was already in karachi thousands of miles away why do you think pulau would have tried to enter the race after all he didn't qualify you had to be australian to fly the race you did have to be australian he actually said that he wanted to just do it for france it was calling to have to idle in england while every day we read in the press of the progress of monsieur poulet ross smith thought it was now or never and it was very nearly never [Music] out over the english channel the vimy ran into a violent snowstorm ross smith had to climb to 9000 feet to avoid the dangerous weather as they were flying the crew's goggles froze over instruments started to fail even their sandwiches froze but dangerously ice started to form on the wings making the vimy heavy and hard to handle just one mess of blanket of a snail didn't know where we were just sounded very terrible bunny then he was saying yes he said i would he said i wonder where we are couldn't see a thing the crew struggled on with the snow clouds obscuring the world below them and very little idea where they were [Music] incredibly six hours later they dropped beneath the clouds and realized they were only 40 miles off course from the destination of lyon in france so after a while i noticed the old machine was with her nose dipped so we must be somewhere near the ground and all of a sudden the next thing you knew was she hit the ground [Music] we sat there for a while moving ourselves about trying to stretch our body but dear i said i had no idea that there was snow like this in rome he says they'll be back in size he said we're not in rome oh i said wherever are we then [Music] this sort of flying is a rotten game the cold is hell and i am a silly ass forever having embarked on the flight we had some cold conditions on our trip but man i can't believe these fellas flying in in the snowstorm having made the same journey in the replica vimy 75 years later lang kidby knows firsthand the physical challenges faced by the crew compared to modern aircraft well we say it's a dog of a thing to fly is it's very ponderous uh very underpowered we flew at a ground speed average of 52 knots uh from england to australia that means even suburban traffic was passing us as we were going along the roadway uh so it's a very long way the aircraft has a very light wing loading even though it's a big airplane it's got a big wing area which means it floats like a piece of paper in the wind so every little gust of wind you're having to fight it and bring it back and that made a really hard game the other thing that strikes you about this is how unbelievably close you are to the spinning propeller it's right here right next to you in fact you've got a small shield here which is to prevent you from inadvertently putting your arm out i would assume because if you did you might get it whacked off that's right the the tips of the propeller come within six inches of the side the pounding from the uh pressure waves from the tips of the propeller must have been definitely it's quite debilitating it's hour after hour and you've got this slight thumping going on on your skull from the uh the propellers moving past you finish up with a headache at the end of each day one by one all teams got underway from hounslow heath but it wasn't long before the race exacted a terrible toll as fledgling technology was pushed to the limit the alliance p2c bird took off a day after the vimy but within minutes it had crashed into an orchard killing the crew roger douglas and leslie ross the suspected cause damage from a heavy landing in the days before the flight howl and fraser were plagued with bad weather from the moment of takeoff in their mountainside six days into the flight they were spotted circling in semi-darkness off the island of corfu before landing in the ocean howl's body washed ashore fraser was officially listed as missing at sea the blackburn kangaroo suffered so many engine woes it sparked rumors of sabotage flying over the mediterranean the crew was forced back to crete with a disastrous oil leak their race came to an end 17 days after leaving england in a ditch beside the wall of a mental hospital all four crew were lucky to survive matthews and kaye the first entrance to take off in the sopwith wallaby were delayed by bad weather then imprisoned as suspected bolsheviks in yugoslavia then hit by more bad weather and mechanical problems somehow they made it all the way to bali where they crashed on landing six months after they took off both survived perhaps the most intrepid team of all was that of battling ray pera and john mcintosh emblazoned with the initials pd in honour of their sponsor scottish whiskey magnet peter dawson the air code dh9 took off in january 1920 after the race had already been won their plane was damaged by storms and engine fires and a seemingly endless number of crashes in burma they suffered a bad accident while just trying to avoid the welcoming crowd they finally reached darwin in august 1920 207 days after leaving but they were still celebrated as the first crew to fly a single engine plane from england to australia earning a consolation prize from the government for their efforts so now french pilot etienne poulet had become the biggest threat to ross smith and his team the vimy was slowly narrowing the french crew's 3000 mile lead but it was incredibly hard going they hit headwinds and torrential rains over italy and became bogged at pisa 30 italian mechanics tried to pull them out but in the end ross smith decided that the answer was for one of the mechanics jim bennett to actually put all of his force down on the tail plane and run along beside the plane as ross was taxiing along and ross said when the wheels take let's start lifting off from the earth you need to sprint and jump into the back cockpit wallyshire's going to pull you in so i said to bernie i said i'll tell you what we could do now i said i'll fasten the rope around you one of the guy ropes that we carried and i said as soon as she moves on to those wheels i said then i can pull you in i said you'll have the motion of the machine on the ground i suddenly realized that bennett was not on board but as i had got the machine moving at last i was afraid to stop her again i felt sure he would clamber on board somehow as i had previously told him that as soon as the machine started to move he would have to make a flying jump for it or else take the next train to rome i pulled many in here first into the cockpit and benny by this time we were flying through the water going everywhere we gathered way very rapidly and after leaving the ground i was delighted to see sergeant bennett on board [Music] and when they arrived in cairo it looked like the race was over they found a crack in one of the pipes and they telegraphed to england and said can you send us a repair it was going to take weeks for a new engine to be shipped out ross smith realised that meant the 30 day time frame for winning the 10 000 pounds was gone so um their mechanic shires uh had the great idea it was a crack in the induction by so anyhow after a while i thought myself brownie we've got chewing gum on that boat now this is true you laugh at this so i turned around and i got up in the cup it took out the box of uh spearmint chewing gum that they'd given us in england the spearmint chewing gum people anyhow we start tuning it up little flakes you know and we chewed it up and tuned it up until we got quite a ball of it you see so i got after this and i roamed it out into a nice tape you know so i took it up and put it around that break where it was and i painted it with black shellacker so i said to russ i said well i said i think she ought to be all right ross he's a good guy and he said that's good he said we'll take her up and try her the following morning he and ross went up for a test flight and hallelujah it was flying and they were back in the race was while in cairo that ross smith was reminded of the shocking odds facing them all i bought a new sheet and read with a shock of keen regret of the accident that had befallen our gallant competitors lieutenants douglas and ross who had both been killed practically at the starting post there was still a long way to go and beyond india there were new problems to contend with airstrips were practically non-existent they would have to make do with race tracks jungle clearings and mud flats far from ideal for the lumbering vimy but that wasn't their only worry ditching into dense jungle or the ocean far from civilization would likely mean a death sentence even if they survived a crash they had no radio on board and barely any food we carried an emergency ration consisting of tinned meat and biscuits together with some chocolate and bovrel this was in case we should be forced to land in some obscure place and roughly we had enough food to last us seven days a fishing line and a few hooks were also carried in case we should land on some small uninhabited island and have to do the robinson crusoe act for a time these incredible aerial photos were actually taken by the vimy crew themselves to help share some insights into leading a crew i've invited a former nasa colleague of mine to visit the vimy hangar the leadership question is interesting because you've commanded shuttle crews you've also commanded a large u.s air force military transport and military tanker what do you think is the most important leadership characteristic that ross smith must have had to be able to lead this crew on this epic mission unflagging optimism i think that's a hugely important characteristic that there was certainty and a positive and enthusiastic and confident attitude we're going to do this we're going to get through this yeah this is a little bit of a hassle today but it's going to be fine and we're going to make it everything was worked in harmony little bits of things happened but there was always ross and keith ready to have a good laugh and say well forget about it the chaps fatigue was another challenge for the crew after a long day of flying their work was far from done the mechanics often had to work on the vimy all through the night every day these engines had to be worked on their oil changes were very regular there were adjustments being made small things were breaking on the engines all the time and the mechanics probably had more physical uh time on the aircraft than the pilots actually did the vimy crew cleared one of their biggest psychological hurdles on the 29th of november looking down onto a burmese aerodrome they spotted the tiny french cordron aircraft they caught poulet by now the whole world was gripped by the race across the globe between the australians and the frenchmen after their rendezvous the two crews agreed to fly on together from burma but it turned out to be the end of the line for the plucky pulley he in fact never got further than burma or modern-day myanmar because his plane broke down [Music] there was to be no rest for the vimy crew now it was all about a race against time and it had become a truly international effort to get them to the finish line just outside baghdad 50 indian cavalry men held the plane down all night in a raging sandstorm it really felt like the world was willing these men across the line there were moments during the flight that seemed like it was all over i'm thinking particularly in singura in siam modern-day thailand where they landed on an airfield that was full of tree stumps and actually broke the tail skid of the vimy it seemed at that point they would never get off they didn't have any fuel delivered there there was of course the famous bamboo runway at surabaya again another instance where it seemed completely hopeless it seemed like they would be taking the next boat home to australia and shipping the vimy at some time later now surabaya was a place that the dutch people were in command they heard about us coming and they sort of dredged the channels to make an aerodrome but they hadn't been informed what sort of uh machine was coming and this is where we made the mistake is when we went in it was only just a crust on the top of the water and of course we went right into the bong i don't think i have ever felt so tired or so miserable in my life as i did then we were only 1200 miles from australia we still had four of our 30 days left in which to do it and yet to all intents and purposes we were hopelessly stuck in this quagmire without a chance of getting out of it it seemed as if victory were to be snatched from us at the last moment in surabaya in indonesia they had villagers streaming in with these huge pieces of matting on their heads these indonesian villagers had pulled the matting off the walls of their homes to lay this bamboo runway 300 metres long because the vimy's wheels kept sinking down into this fog so they laid this runway so the plane could take off and off they went you know with bits of bamboo matting flying everywhere and these villagers you know left to basically take their homes you know back again but just beautiful stories of people coming out to help them across the globe and getting them home on the morning of december 10th the vimy left timor the last stop before australia we set our compass course for darwin and whether here goes we were out over the sea it was a daunting prospect a six hour 466 mile crossing of the shark infested timor sea so it was with huge relief they spotted an australian battleship halfway across the hmas sydney had been positioned there in case the air racers were forced to ditch we swooped low and exactly at 12 minutes past noon passed over the vessel seeing plainly the upturned faces of the sailors and their waving hands it was a cheer of welcome quite different from anything that we had experienced on the long journey the crew dropped them a message in a bottle very glad to see you many thanks for looking after us going strong here in darwin preparations were underway for the arrival of the vimy and her crew a landing site was prepared by inmates from the local prison clearing the bush to create a runway the path of that runway is still visible today as an unusually long and straight stretch of road known appropriately as ross smith avenue two hours after the vimy passed over the hma of sydney and with the fuel tanks almost dry a welcome sight loomed up ahead we saw ahead what appeared to be hayes but which we hoped was land though neither did express his hopes ten minutes later inhaling benetton shires we pointed joyfully to bathurst island lighthouse it was just 206 pm when as our diary prosaically notes we observed australia 3 50 p.m vimy g e a o u landed darwin 27 days 20 hours from england to australia after a total of 135 hours in the air they'd done it we had won the race against time and the 10 000 prize with just 52 hours to spare the hardships and perils of the past month were forgotten in the excitement of the present we shook hands with one another our hearts swelling with those emotions invoked by achievement and the glamour of the moment it was and will be perhaps the supreme hour of our lives the excited locals lifted the crew onto their shoulders ignoring dire health warnings about catching the spanish flu or other diseases from the overseas travelers after the vimy had landed the crew were transferred here to government house and telegram started flooding in from king george v from world leaders from the prime minister billy hughes but most importantly from their greatly relieved family members the bewildered crew was showing newspaper clippings from all around the world tracking their flight they had become global superstars ross smith was incredulous and said surely everyone had gone mad or had we why all this fuss and excitement [Music] ross and keith smith flew over countries that had never seen an airplane before no one had gone as far as rotten keith smith it wasn't just a big event for australia this was world famous this was world news it dominated the headlines all around the world the press called ross smith a latter-day captain cook the new york times said he was the foremost living aviator so pam how important do you think this flight is in the history of aviation i think it's incredibly significant and if you think about it it was actually only 16 years from the wright brothers so the technology development is still very primitive so the idea that this very primitive technology could be used to accomplish this incredibly challenging long-distance mission it is very much like apollo the challenges they face were monumental and you know we probably just take it for granted but without those pioneers we would not have the ability to do what we do today yeah they showed that flight like that was possible from an engineering point of view it was the first time it had been done absolutely and from that point on aircraft just progressed and got more and more sophisticated and uh you know bluntly more comfortable as well [Music] ross smith was australia's first great aviation pioneer but i think it was him perhaps more than anyone else who bought the air age to australia and helped a sense of air-mindedness and a sense of the future potential that aviation had for the world the first person to greet ross in darwin was fellow flying core pilot hudson fish he'd been tasked with surveying landing sites for the competitors driving overland across northern australia with another airman paul mcguinness a year later in 1920 they used that same survey to start flights for their queensland and northern territory aerial services it's better known today as qantas the exhausted vimy crew spent two full days in darwin time enough to overhaul the engines almost reverently we looked over the vimy and unspoken admiration crept over us the vimy had passed through every possible climatic rigger and practically without any attention not once from the time we took our departure from hounslow had she ever been under shelter and now as i looked over her a glow with pride the vimy loomed up as the zenith of man's inventive and constructional genius a lavish banquet was thrown for them at the victoria hotel afterwards ross and keith smith signed the wall here of the old hotel in years to come that would become a tradition as other aviators visited the city when darwin became the gateway to and from australia for long-haul aviation the smith's brother signatures have largely faded in the passage of time but other famous signatures are clearly visible such as charles kingsford smith bert hinckler hudson fish co-founder of qantas and lane kidby who threw the vimy replica here 25 years ago if the crew was exhausted the vimy was on her last legs but ross smith was determined to push on fearful have been trapped for months in darwin by the arrival of the tropical wet season wherever they stopped the crowds grew larger everyone wanted to see the superstars who'd flown halfway around the world in sydney ross and keith saw their parents for the first time since they had gone to war and wally shires even took time out to marry his longtime fiance elena alford [Music] a whole two months later they flew into melbourne to receive the ten thousand pound check close to a million dollars in today's money the prize was split evenly between the four of them ross and keith smith were granted knighthoods the mechanics were promoted to lieutenants manny the mechanics clearly made a significant contribution to the success of this slide do you think they got the recognition they deserved we've got to remember that it was 1919 the officers by and large got the big kudos for something like this you know ross and keith were knighted i would knight them but in those days the other ranks it just wasn't something that happened but sir smith wouldn't rest until he finished the epic flight in his hometown of adelaide south australia by journey's end they'd covered 14 000 miles or almost 23 000 kilometers since leaving england it was probably one of the most important flights ever after the wright brothers uh it proved that long distance air travel was possible and no one had flown anywhere near that distance anywhere on a single flight the legacy is astonishingly important they laid the foundations for the types of long-haul flights we now take for granted we now know we can fly to australia non-stop astonishing it led to qantas it paved the way and was one of the reasons that the rwaf was born out of the australian flying club after the war it showed the world that global commercial aviation would one day be possible it was just so far ahead of its time that we've all forgotten about it [Music] film and photos taken by the vimy crew were edited into a travel documentary which the ross smith presented in person to hundreds of thousands of people around the country for many it was the first time they'd seen the wonders of the world such as the pyramids and the taj mahal and all from the air at the end of the war people like ross and people of that generation must have been exhausted after this horrific experience in combat and would want nothing more than to just come home yet he he took on this huge challenge of flying from england to australia why do you think he did that throughout ross smith's life there seems to be this constant desire for something else he's constantly aspiring to improve himself and to achieve more and i think after the war he was just not ready to go home and settle down back into civilian life in fact i think the prospect of that actually frightened him and as it did to a lot of men and i think given the opportunity to go on to something bigger and greater which is to see what aviation would now mean for the post-war world i think it was an opportunity he just couldn't pass up but it was this desire to go on to bigger and better things that was to prove ross smith's undoing in 1922 along with brother keith and mechanic jim bennett he set his sights on becoming the first pilot to circumnavigate the globe ross returned to the vickers factory in brooklyn for a test flight of a viking aircraft with jim bennett at his side hundreds had gathered to watch ross put the amphibious viking through its paces keith was supposed to be on board with them but his train had been delayed arrived just in time to see the plane spiraling out of the sky ross smith's life ended his body pinned under the mangled wreckage jim bennett died moments later from horrific injuries this is the actual location of the crash that took the lives of ross smith and jim bennett just in sight of the brooklyn's airfield where it started just three years before a heartbroken keith smith had to relay the news back home to australia by telegram ross and bennett killed instantaneously this morning knew nothing i'm all right informed mother love keith smith [Music] news of his death reached adelaide within hours by the telegram service keith didn't want his mum and dad to be reading about it in the newspapers so he got a cable through to them and through to the bennett family as well and the city was in complete shock there was an outpouring of grief the government in consultation with the family decided to repatriate the remains of ross and jim bennett as well and they ship them home [Applause] the newspapers have no idea of how many people came out but all the way from the city up to north road cemetery the roads were lined with people tens of thousands perhaps even hundreds of thousands of people came out to pay their respects and that's an indication of just how important ross was to to the people of this city they really did see him as as the best of them [Music] ross smith was 29 when he died and by all accounts he was a rare individual he certainly had great skills as a professional aviator but he also seemed to have had natural-born talents as a leader he had what later generations would describe as the right stuff [Music] here in the city of adelaide where i was born and raised travel by air was still a novelty when i was growing up and for a young boy with a keen interest in building model airplanes and rockets nothing was more exciting than going to the airport and watching giant aircraft take off and land and it was during one such trip that i made a truly amazing discovery it was the actual vickers vimy flown by ross smith the story inspired me to believe the sky is never the limit i became an aerospace engineer and then a nasa astronaut in 1996 i went into space for the first time as crew member on the shuttle endeavour and the pilot wings worn by ross and keith smith traveled with me to honor that epic flight of 1919 [Music] yet a century on ross smith is rarely named among the world's pioneering aviators but another australian is charles kingsford smith made the first trans-pacific flight from the united states to australia in 1928. smithy went on to set records for other long distance flights but he disappeared during a speed record attempt from england to australia in 1935. could ross smith have faded from history simply because of his name i think andy there's a few elements to that i think having the surname smith probably hasn't helped um both because of its um how common it is but also because the other or one of the other great australian aviation pioneers to charles kingston-smith um he often gets confused while writing my book on numerous occasions people have come and asked me how's the kingston smith book going and i've got to explain now it's the other smith so keith smith continued working in aviation until his death from cancer in 1955. he was survived by his widow lady anita smith wally shares seen here at the opening of the vimy hangar in the late 1950s was the last surviving crew member he died in adelaide a decade later age 79. none of the vimy crew had children so there are no direct descendants alive today and as for the old vickers vimy well she's set to take center stage once again the star attraction and a new terminal at adelaide airport some people say that this this plane is the spirit of st louis of australia would you think that's a failure absolutely i would i would argue that the achievement was more substantial than that it was the moon landing of its day i really believe that so jim we have three airplanes that capture the development of aviation for the last century what do you think's next what's the future of aviation well it's interesting andy i think we've sort of gone slightly backwards you know we had aircraft like concord in the uh the 60s and the 70s that were achieving mark ii flight and uh since concord went out of service we've been back below the speed of sound in terms of passenger transport so hopefully we'll move back there and uh and forward you know into areas like hypersonics um obviously there's another generation of space flight to mars and beyond uh and then i guess uh in the atmosphere we're gonna be looking at things like electric aircraft now jim in the big air race of 1919 a number of crews participated there were some accidents along the way and some tragedies uh i'd like to offer a salute to those participants and i'm told that in days early days of aviation pilots would tip their wings to acknowledge uh their compatriots yeah i think we could do that i think we could they used to do a bit of a wing waggle so i think if we spoke to the tiger moth pilot i'm sure he'd be more than happy to help us out okay let's go my grandfather was a young returned soldier when the vimy landed in darwin in 1919. he lived to see neil and buzz walk on the moon in 1969 just 50 years later and at the end of his life in the early 1980s he saw the first space shuttle launch and it's amazing to think that all those advances took place in the course of just one human lifetime there have been many trailblazing air races since the england to australia flight of 1919. but this should surely be remembered as the greatest air race of all

Channel: Spark

Views: 6,070

Rating: 4.8518519 out of 5

Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, How To, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, construction, building, full documentary, space documentary, bbc documentary, Science documentary, media, atom, sir ross smith, aviators, library, sa, slsa, south australia, ross smith, epic flight, england to australia, aviation, flight, history, heroes of the skies, state library of south australia, sa memory, australia, newsreel, aeroplanes, vickers, death, aircraft, amphibians, accidents

Id: mGGML5xi7xs

Length: 53min 18sec (3198 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 20 2021