Flying In The Face Of Adversity

Newcastle Herald

Saturday March 29, 2008

Mike Scanlon

WHEN Bert Hinkler flew into Broadmeadow racecourse in 1928 he was given a huge hero's welcome . . . eventually.

Dubbed the "Australian Lone Eagle", the aviation pioneer had first circled the racecourse after midday on Saturday, March 10, 1928, before coming in for a perfect three-point landing in his biplane, despite a tricky crosswind.

Short of stature, modest and unassuming, the famous pilot was also very obliging soon after landing, although the patience of any other flyer would have been sorely tested.

Immediately after landing, Newcastle Jockey Club officials had an unusual request to make.

After just flying down from Brisbane, Bert Hinkler was asked if he could take off again as he'd arrived an hour too early.

It was only 12.30pm and many Novocastrians, including several hundred district schoolchildren, had not yet arrived. Everyone had expected Hinkler to come at 1.30pm.

And so the man, who at that moment was Australia's greatest aviator, climbed back into the open cockpit of his frail aircraft and took to the skies again.

An hour later when he returned, there was a large enthusiastic crowd of Hunter locals there to greet the aviator who had only recently made a historic 15-day England-to-Australia flight.

After he landed his aircraft a second time on the straight at the Broadmeadow racecourse, the Hamilton Citizens' Band struck up the tune, See The Conquering Hero Comes, and he was honoured with speeches.

Responding, the modest Hinkler said he was "overcome and embarrassed" by the welcome he'd received and felt he was taking their goodwill under false pretences.

Later, Hinkler flew south towards Sydney as the band played Auld Lang Syne against a backdrop of throaty cheers of goodbye and good luck.

But if Bert Hinkler's Newcastle stopover had impressed him, he would have been totally flabbergasted at what awaited him in the Sydney metropolis.

A staggering 100,000 people greeted him when he landed at Mascot Aerodrome.

"Hustling Hinkler", who had conquered the tyranny of distance between England and Australia when he landed his tiny Avro Avian at Darwin on February 22, 1928, was a true national hero.

His epic solo flight to Darwin came only months after pioneering American aviator Charles Lindbergh made his solo, non-stop Atlantic flight.

Hinkler slashed almost 13 days off the old flight record between England and Australia of 28 days, all while being his own pilot and mechanic and using a London Times atlas for navigation.

He was given a #2000 prize by a grateful Australian Government and made an honorary RAAF squadron leader.

Choked up with emotion, Hinkler told Sydneysiders his flying exploit was not just a stunt but a mission of serious intent.

Hinkler said aviation was the most faithful and true servant of the British Empire as it was the means of bringing the far-flung outposts closer together.

The plane was looked upon by the average citizen as a hazardous means of transportation, but that was "a delusion", he said.

Hinkler accurately predicted aircraft were the way of the future.

Shy and a loner, the fame of the Bundaberg-born airman is often overshadowed by another great airman, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.

"Smithy", as he was popularly known, was more flamboyant and more publicity conscious. Look no further than Sydney's international airport at Mascot which is named after him.

Like Smithy, Hinkler died at the height of his fame.

Married in 1932, he died in 1933 when his aircraft crashed into an Italian mountain.

A quiet achiever, Hinkler spawned an aviation legend of his own in the Hunter Valley and it happened seven years before his famous touchdown at Broadmeadow.

Hinkler's earlier visit to the Newcastle region, now largely forgotten, was a near disaster. That's when he crashed-landed his tiny aircraft on the beach at Anna Bay, north of Newcastle, in torrential tropical rain.

The date was April 27, 1921. Hinkler was soaked to the skin in his open cockpit flying down the NSW coast during a wild storm. Visibility was so poor in the blinding rain that the then RAF Lieutenant Hinkler was flying dangerously low over the waves. Hugging the coast, trying to pick out prominent landmarks, his Avro Baby aeroplane had been buffeted by the rainstorm for almost seven hours since leaving Brisbane.

Hinkler was later to complain the south-easterly squalls increased with such severity that they began blowing with cyclonic force.

"I was travelling at 70 miles per hour [about 112 kmh] and so you can imagine the rain beat down on me like a shower of stones," Hinkler told a Herald reporter.

He said the force of the rain affected his wing stays and tears began to appear in the stretch fabric of his biplane, making it "whistle alarmingly".

His machine was "just skimming the surf", which was Hinkler's only visual aid. While approaching Newcastle, he feared colliding with shipping in the downpour so decided instead to try and land on a firm stretch of beach sand.

Despite his machine being violently pitched about in the wind gusts and visibility being almost nil, Hinkler piloted to a safe landing on Anna Bay beach as the tide rose. But that was where the real trouble began.

He crash-landed at 2pm that day. To save his damaged machine from being blown away, he then sat for 30 minutes on its tail.

As it was a desolate part of the coast with nobody coming to help, he set out in the driving rain seeking assistance. But he'd only walked a few metres when a gust of wind lifted his machine, turning it completely over, damaging the propeller and the rudder.

Leaving his aircraft, Hinkler set off into the bush wearing his straw boater hat. He later estimated he tramped about 16 kilometres inland through scrub and sand hills before reaching Lucy Upton's post office and a telephone at Bobs Farm about dusk.

After ringing Sydney to tell his hosts that he'd be very late arriving, the soaked and miserable Hinkler then spent the night at the Upton's farm.

Local folklore has it that the aviator carried his pet magpie with him on his shoulder throughout the adventure and that the neighbourhood children later fed it worms.

The next morning, with the weather clearing, resident Neil Cromarty hitched five horses to Hinkler's disabled biplane to tow it down the beach to Stockton. Here, it was dismantled to be taken by steamer to Sydney for repair and Hinkler went on to bigger and better things.

An unexpected memento of that Anna Bay adventure came 18 months ago from South Africa to the Hinkler House Memorial Museum in his home town of Bundaberg, Queensland. It was a 1921 picture showing the actual aircraft beach salvage. It is reproduced here today.

A separate appeal for memorabilia in The Herald earlier this month then yielded a picture of Hinkler's aircraft at Broadmeadow in 1928.

"The Newcastle response to our appeal was fantastic," museum secretary John Wientjens said this week.

"Both pictures were absolutely magnificent . . . real finds," he said.

Hinkler House Memorial Museum and Research Association president Lex Rowland said the museum would expand into a $7.3 million Hinkler Hall of Aviation, honouring the pioneering airman. The building is due to open in December.

More than 20 years ago museum members had even dismantled one of Hinkler's homes in Southampton, England, and brought it back to Australia in two 21-tonne shipping containers for re-assembly, Rowland said.

"It was the house in which he planned some of his great flights," Rowland said.

"Hinkler was born here in Bundaberg in 1892 but went to England in 1913 and was caught there when World War I broke out, so he became an RAF gunner.

"He worked originally at the Sopwith aircraft factory and later became the chief test pilot for Avro Aviation. He was extremely modest, with a great passion for flying, and was an exceptional mathematician and inventor.

"Hinkler made a lot of aviation instruments which were in use up until the Second World War. One was a gadget to correct drift as airplanes fly a little bit on their side, not straight ahead.

"In WWI, Hinkler invented a machine gun adaptor for air gunners. Back then, when the biplanes were flying upside down in combat, the hot, ejected shells would fall and burn the chest of the gunners as they fired. Hinkler's invention had the ejected shells all flying off to one side instead.

"Hinkler's nicknames included Spondulix, meaning he was pretty lousy, very frugal with his money early on as he spent it all on his aeroplane. Another was Dirty Bertie, as he was always covered in aircraft grease and oil and was never a man for fine clothes."

Rowland also said Bert Hinkler was very attached to animals.

"He once flew the South Atlantic with a marmoset monkey as a companion, and his famous magpie pet was given to him as a gift. He first took it on an air trip from Bundaberg to Gympie," he said.

"Hinkler later took his pet magpie with him to Newcastle. It's all a little obscure, but he may have given it to some boys at Bobs Farm after he crash-landed at Anna Bay."

Hinkler said aviation was the most faithful and true servant of the British Empire as it was the means of bringing the far-flung outposts closer together.