First Australian plane to fly- JOHN DUIGAN

[Fantome]

John Duigan ('die-gann') was the first to design, build and fly an aeroplane in Australia. July 16, 1910 at Mia Mia in Victoria in the Kyneton district.

David Crotty's recent book on the Duigan story is a good read to say the least.

Duigan's flying career spanned the decade 1908 to 1918. His name is little known outside a small circle of aviation enthusiasts but 100 years ago he built and successfully flew his plane using only photographs , journal articles and an unreliable text book as his guides.

From his early years as a Melbourne school boy to his notable service as a pilot in France in the 1914-18 war the life of John Duigan was one of remarkable ingenuity and independence.

Look this book up chasps.. . . .. and chapplettes.

Incidentally, the aviators or inventors whose names are now on or are slated to be upon Qantas A380s are -

* John Duigan - First Australian to design, construct and fly a powered aircraft.

* Nancy-Bird Walton - the first woman to fly a commercial aviation service in Australia.

* Hudson Fysh - one of the founders of Qantas and the airline's first Managing Director.

* Paul McGinness - one of the founders of Qantas.

* Fergus McMaster - one of the founders of Qantas and the first Chairman of the Company.

* Lawrence Hargrave - inventor of the box kite, linking four of these together in 1894 to fly 16 feet.

* Charles Kingsford Smith - Australia's most famous aviator, who made the first trans-Pacific flight from the USA to Australia in 1928, and founded Australian National Airways Limited.

* Charles Ulm - Co-pilot, on Kingsford Smith's record-breaking trans-Pacific flight between the USA and Australia in 1928 and co-founder of Australian National Airways Limited.

* Reginald Ansett - Founder of Ansett Airways Pty Ltd.

* David Warren - Inventor of the Black Box Flight Recorder.

* Bert Hinkler - Pilot of first solo flight from Britain to Australia ( in 1928.)

(" Hinkle Hinkle little star - 16 days and here you are" - brilliant Punch cartoon of the day)


* Phyllis Arnott - First Australian woman to gain a commercial pilot's license.

* Keith McPherson Smith and Ross McPherson Smith - winners of the famous 'Air Race' between London and Australia in 1919.

* Lester Brain - Piloted one of the first Qantas routes in 1925 and ferried the first wartime Catalina Flying Boat delivered by Qantas Empire Airways in 1941. Later appointed General Manager of Trans-Australia Airlines in 1946.

* Lores Bonney - First woman to fly solo around Australia in 1932 and the first woman to fly solo from Australia to England, in 1933.

* Norman Brearley - Founder of Western Australian Airways Limited, which operated Australia's first scheduled air service on 5 December 1921.

* P G Taylor - Navigator and co-pilot alongside Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm on many record-breaking flights between Australia and the United States and England and Australia. Taylor was awarded the Empire Gallantry Medal in 1937 for one of the most outstanding acts of bravery in the history of aviation. (The in flight oil transfer to save the crippled Southern Cross mid way across the Tasman Sea in 1934)

* Scotty Allan - Co-pilot alongside Charles Ulm and P G Taylor on the 1933 record-breaking flight from England to Australia and later joined Qantas and flew DH86 aircraft on the Brisbane-Singapore route. (Wrote late in life in association with Elizabeth Shearman "Scotty Allan - Australia's Flying Scotsman" --- some who knew the man well said to me he should have deleted the 'F' in 'flying'. I have more on this subject but would not talk freely without inducement. I can say that the Bill Dobell portrait is a cracker though, as are all by that master).

* John Flynn - Founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

* Gaby Kennard - First Australian woman to fly solo around the world in 1989



(Rather thought Buster Hyman would have been a good choice.)

[parabellum]

Probably I have missed something here but I thought a gentleman named Houdini carried out the first powered flight in Australia, 100 years ago?

[Fantome]

Yes . . . . Harry Houdini (Erich Weiss) is indeed credited by many for that achievement . .. he had his imported Voisin .. . but there will always be controversy as others claimed to have beaten Houdini . However they lacked the standard and credibility of witnessing that Houdini had .

John Duigan fully deserves the credit for making the first successful powered flight in Australia on a machine of local design and manufacture.

Incidentally here is something memorable about the Houdini flight -

HOUDINI'S DESCRIPTION OF HIS FLIGHT

From the Weekly Times, (Melbourne), March 19 1910, Harry Houdini is quoted after his flight

"I am the first man to have flown in Australia and I have fulfilled my greatest ambition.

I shall never forget my sublime and enthralling sensations and I only hope that my success will encourage other aviators to perservere and conquer the air. They will find aviation a pastime providing new and wonderful sensations such as no other pastime can afford."

What were your feelings while floating between heaven and earth?

"They were absolutely novel and I can scarcely describe them. But I felt a sensation of wonderful lightness and being independent of space and time.

You know the untrammelled experience of flight in a dream? It was like that. There was no resistance against it. The morning air sweet and fresh, felt like some life giving elixir or cordial, as it whistled and shrieked in my ears.

Behind me the propeller churned away making a terrible din as if protesting against my temerity. I shouted with joy but the spectators away beneath couldn't hear me.

Then out of the corner of my eye I noticed my engineer capering about and dancing on his hat, while certain semaphore signals prearranged told me it was time to return to earth."

How did you make your descent?

"I simply depressed the plane, shut off the engine and glided to the ground as smoothly as a water hen glides to a pool.

It was as if the machine desired to impress me that all was perfect ease.

I know of no locomotion in which master and machine appear to have, may I use the word, affinity? There is the mind of the man, composed and serene after the first exhilarating effect of rising, directing the flight and the immediate response of the mechanical bird.

I could even go to the length of saying that it was like a thing of life entering into one's desire to ride the air."

[parabellum]

Thanks Fantome, enjoyed Houdini's tale very much, a bit like my first solo!

There was a lovely airshow at Melton, VIC. in March this year, to celebrate the first powered flight.

[4Greens]

Check out this website:Royal Aeronautical Society - Australian Division - Centenary of Powered Flight in Australia (http://www.raes.org.au/centenary-of-powered-flight-in-australia/)

There is a great deal of controversy about the first flight. Houdini had good pr but was not the first.

[ian.whalley]

Is that a bit like those who flew before the Wright Brothers and those who exceeded the speed of sound before Yeager?

I'll stick with Houdini as being first to fly in Australia. His flight was filmed and documented (as was Orville Wright's first flight).

[4Greens]

Hence my comment about good PR.

[SpringHeeledJack]

Is that a bit like those who flew before the Wright Brothers and those who exceeded the speed of sound before Yeager? I'll stick with Houdini as being first to fly in Australia. His flight was filmed and documented (as was Orville Wright's first flight).

Perhaps it's just that these flights were the first officially documented, therefore 'seen' as the first. A bit like these days, if you can't find 'it' on google/wikipedia then it doesn't exist := It's a shame that these early pioneers weren't recognized and rewarded as such., but it holds true to the phenomenon that whenever there's a major breakthrough in the advancement of a technology there are always several disparate groups working on the same subject and often unknown to eachother.


SHJ

[Bluey Snuttzov]

John Duigan fully deserves the credit for making the first successful powered flight in Australia on a machine of local design and manufacture.



He surely does Fantome - and much more as well.

From airforce.gov.au


In March 1916, Duigan was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Australian Flying
Corps (AFC) and proceeded overseas in October as a flight commander in
the newly-formed No 3 Squadron.
Promoted to captain in August 1917, he went with the unit to Cambrai, France, in September and
was in action by the end of the following month.
On 9 May 1918 the R.E.8 reconnaissance machine thatDuigan was flying was set upon by four
German aircraft over Villers-Bretonneux. Although severely wounded,he managed to beat off his
attackers—enabling his observer to shoot one of them down—and landed safely. For this feat, he
was awarded the Military Cross.


The Citation, published in the London Gazette reads:--
"While on reconnaissance he was attacked by four enemy scouts. Although
wounded, he manoeuvred his machine with great skill, his observer using
the rear gun; with the result that one scout was shot out of control.
The three others continued the attack, eventually setting fire to his
tail plane, after which he landed behind the front lines, helped to
remove the observer, who had been wounded five times, and saved the
photographic plates in spite of being wounded three times himself."

Frank Gilfedder, a motor cyclist, Dispatch Rider with 3rd Squadron,
Australian Flying Corp, who had taken part in the salvage and funeral
arrangements of Baron Von Richthofen; was dispatched with Sgt
Kirkpatrick in a V & M motor bike, with side car, to locate John’s
aircraft. On locating the plane, they were ‘astonished to find the
position was even more tricky than the rumours of what he could do; it
was in a narrow lane between the held German trenches and some abandoned
trenches on our side. A remarkable feat considering he was wounded. It
was about the same spot where I went out to bring in the bodies of Capt.
Ralf and Jack Buckland, shot down.’ Sgt. Kirkpatrick had told him that
Jack was such a safe pilot, he could safely land a plane in the streets
of London.

[Bluey Snuttzov]

John Duigan and his brother Reginald were not the only members of the Duigan family who were achievers.

Reginald's daughter Sue was a noted paleobotanist and aviatrix who flew her own aircraft around Vic/Tas.

Then there was Brian Duigan -

To most R.A.A.F. Lancaster and Halifax crews, Gelsenkirchen meant oil.
Biggest Ruhr synthetic-oil town (fifth largest in the Ruhr) it was
repeatedly attacked, and Australian squadrons went there seven times,
five of them in the last ten months of the war. Two Australian Halifax
squadrons and a Lancaster squadron took part in the heaviest attack on
Gelsenkirchen of the war on the afternoon of November 6, 1944, when over
700 Halifaxes and Lancasters, escorted by Spitfires and Mustangs, left
huge fires which served as markers for squadrons of Mosquitoes which
bombed the town again after dark.
In addition to the Australian squadrons ,which took part in the planned
liquidation of Gelsenkirchen, many Australian pilots and aircrew flew as
members of R.A.F. heavy bomber crews, among them 25-year-old
Squadron-Leader Brian L. Duigan, D.S.O., D.F.C. and Bar, of Colac (V.),
an Australian in the R.A.F., who was a sheep farmer in Australia and a
miner in South Africa before he became a heavy bomber pilot. He was in
Rhodesia when the European war was cooking and decided to try for a
short service commission in the R.A.F. He set out from Northern Rhodesia
on a two-stroke motor cycle he bought for £20 and travelled through the
Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika on his way to Europe and England. He
joined the R.A.F. in 1940 and had a distinguished service career in
Europe and the Middle East.
Squadron-Leader Duigan's thirteenth trip as captain of a Lancaster was
over Gelsenkirchen. They were after the oil plants. They took off in
dirty weather and climbed through low cloud to settle down on a steady
course to the Ruhr. Picking up the Rhine a trifle south of where they
had intended, they were going up towards the target from Dusseldorf when
they ran into heavy and accurate flak. Duigan took vigorous evasive
action but the enemy kept on in a persistent attempt to cut the
Lancaster's trip short. It was the only aircraft in the neighbourhood at
the time, and consequently received a good deal of concentrated attention.
"Suddenly the flak got even hotter and shells were bursting all round
us," Duigan said, describing the affair later. "One exploded immediately
below us and threw the aircraft up with a terrific bump. We got
fifty-four holes from that one. We counted them next day, and I suppose
we were lucky to have got away with it. The port engine was hit and went
on fire in the air intake but it burnt itself out without my having to
use the fire extinguishing device. However, it was missing very badly
and jumping about so much that I had to throttle back to cut down the
vibration, otherwise we might have had more trouble. That meant I was
getting practically no power from this engine at all, and we were forced
to turn for home. The fire, of course, made a good aiming point for the
ground batteries. They were firing at us all the time. I tried to keep
height but couldn't. We were dropping rapidly.
"Another shell went through the starboard wing but fortunately failed to
explode. The wireless operator had been wounded by the first one that
hit us. A piece of shrapnel hit him in the thigh. He was thrown off his
seat on the floor, but he was still plugged in on the intercom. and I
could hear him. I spoke to him, but didn't get any reply. He was
bleeding very badly and was practically unconscious. I told the
navigator and second pilot to look after him. They cut away part of his
clothing and bandaged his leg, wrapped him up in a couple of blankets,
and gave him morphia to case the pain. They didn't try to get him on the
cushion bed because that would have meant shifting him about a good deal
and would have made things worse, so they made him as comfortable as
they could on the floor. One of them stayed with him all the time.
With the bombs gone, I found that I could maintain height. Then the port
engine picked up again, but the aircraft was difficult to fly because
the damage we'd got made it leftwing-low, and I had to allow for this.
It was a bit tricky towards the end. The navigator couldn't use some of
his maps because they were soaked in blood and quite useless. They must
have fallen on the floor. However, the front gunner had taken over the
wounded wireless operator's job, and he got us some homing bearings. All
our hydraulics were out of action, which affected the undercarriage, the
flaps, and both front and rear turrets. We came back with the emergency
hand system and managed to get in all right, even without flaps." Digger History