Tag Archive for 'colin defries'

First Powered Flight in Australia- Episode 4

Published by Ian Debenham 19 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Souvenir_BookletImage courtesy of John Scott, 2009

Today marks the Centenary of Colin Defries’s historic flight in his Wright Model A ‘The Stella’ at Victoria Park Racecourse on 9th December 1909. To recognise this, here is my fourth and final instalment of the saga…

Armistice in the “Aviation History Wars”

The 1988 bicentennial project of the Civil Aviation Authority, an authoritative chronology of Australian aviation history, researched and produced by two well-respected aviation historians, Neville Parnell and Trevor Boughton, was an opportunity to ‘blow away the fog’ and correct past errors, but the opportunity was lost. In their defence, the task they undertook was monumental and the work is a vital reference for researchers but, like all such works, errors will always occur. In dealing with the evidence relating to Defries, Custance and Houdini, they have tried to let the past speak for itself and the implication is that Houdini was the first to make a powered flight in Australia because the Aerial League of Australia gave Houdini a trophy and “…the flights were certified in writing by nine observers, and claimed as the first in Australia…”. There is no argument that Houdini flew the wings off Defries. Houdini had made three flights on March 18th, 1910 from 1 to 3.5 minutes duration, with a circling flight included. They were observed, photographed and filmed. Houdini was the consummate showman!

However, it has generally become acknowledged that the definition of flight established by the Gorell Committee on behalf of the Aero Club of Great Britain dictates the acceptance of a flight or its rejection. The definition of flight approved by the Gorell Committee states: “Free flight in an aeroplane occurs when the machine, having left the ground, is maintained in the air by its own power on a level or upward path for a distance beyond that over which gravity and air resistance would sustain it”. There is no requirement for lateral control or return to the point of take off. Based on this definition, is there any doubt that Defries flew?

At the moment all is quiet. However, it is expected that the ‘battle’ will flare anew as it did in England in 1958 when the supporters of Alliott Verdon-Roe took issue with the decision of the Gorell Committee and the supporters of Samuel Franklin Cody who was given the credit for the first powered flight in Great Britain. 1958 was the 50th anniversary of Cody’s and Roe’s flights. When the guns fell silent, Cody remained victorious. I expect the same for Defries.

* I am grateful to my colleague in the Aviation Historical Society of Australia (NSW), John Scott, who has researched this chapter of Australian aviation extensively and allowed me to use his work freely in talks and publications. John has published his work in “Loops and Landings”, his monthly contribution to the newsletter of the Society. I have used his battle metaphor that headed his series on the first flight controversy – “The Looming Australian Aviation History Wars” – as an entirely appropriate mechanism to contextualise the parochial feeling evoked by the controversy. Even so, I take full responsibility for all that is written above.

First Powered Flight in Australia- Episode 3

Published by Ian Debenham 6 Comments Tags: , , , , .

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Harry Houdini, Fred Custance and the “Aviation History Wars”

Aviation journalist, Jack Percival, wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald of August 7th, 1960:

No special celebration is planned to mark the 50th anniversary of the first flight in a powered aeroplane in Australia…the experts can’t agree to whom the honour should be given for the first true flight.

It was clear to Wing Commander Harry Cobby, a First World War fighter ace, and Controller of Operations, Civil Aviation Board, when he wrote in an article in Aircraft in March of 1938 that “the first aeroplane flight in the Southern Hemisphere was made in 1909 by Mr Colin Defries, a Londoner, at Victoria Park Racecourse, Sydney, in a Wilbur Wright aeroplane”. However, subsequently this clarity became lost in historical fog. This loss was aided and abetted by George Augustine Taylor who had the task of writing the history of Australian aviation for the first edition of The Australian Encyclopedia, appearing in the mid 1920s. In his ‘history’, he made no mention of Defries preferring to give the first flight accolade to Ehrich Weiss, better known as escapologist, Harry Houdini, who had flown his French-made Voisin biplane very impressively at Diggers Rest, near Melbourne on March 18th, 1910. The reasons for Taylor’s neglect of Defries are speculative, but it is plain from the surviving evidence that the two men did not like one another and Taylor did not like the Wright brothers because he felt that they had ‘stolen’ Lawrence Hargrave’s ideas without acknowledgement.

houdiniImage above: Houdini at Diggers Rest near Melbourne on March 18, 1910.

Taylor’s input into The Australian Encyclopedia remained until revised in 1965 by aviation journalist Stanley Brogden relying on his research for his book, published in 1960 titled History of Australian Aviation. Unfortunately, Brogden doesn’t specifically identify his sources of information preferring to acknowledge “…the editor and proprietors of the magazine Aircraft“. From his research, he formed the view that the first powered flight in Australia took place at Bolivar in South Australia, the aircraft was a Bleriot monoplane with Fred Custance as the pilot. The supposed flight took place on March 17th, 1910, the day before Houdini’s flight. In 1967, Brogden revised his view, coming to the opinion that Custance couldn’t be credited with the first flight because “…Custance had never flown before, that he had no proper control of his machine, and that the flight was not witnessed by any independent authority”.

custance_01_200Image above: Fred Custance in the First World War. Image courtesy of Monash University.

Brogden’s recantation was printed in a publication called Commercial Aviation-Around Australia Program which unfortunately did not have the wider readership of The Australian Encyclopedia. Brogden was right to reject Custance’s flight because in 1957 the Bleriot’s owner, Fred Jones, had written to his engineer, Bill Wittber, confessing that the claimed circling flight of March 17th 1910 by Custance was a “myth” to use Jones’ word and Custance’s second flight attempt was a take off followed by a crash slightly injuring Custance and damaging the Bleriot. With Jones as the uncorroborated witness, his testimony on height and distance is suspect and the inference is that Custance stalled on take off, nosediving into the ground, without travelling any great distance or demonstrating control.

custance_carroll_500Image above: Custance with his Bleriot monoplane. Image courtesy of Monash University.

The next contributor to the history of Australian aviation in The Australian Encyclopedia was Ron Gibson, first president of the Aviation Historical Society of Australia, NSW Branch, who, in 1977, supported Brogden’s original attribution to Custance at Bolivar. Earlier, in 1972, Gibson had contributed an article to the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society in which he acknowledged Defries’s flights, but then dismissed them as qualifying for first flight status on account of their original non-acceptance by the Aerial League of Australia, George Augustine Taylor’s creation, and secondly because “purists” reasoned that “…the pilot [Defries] did not demonstrate any ability to control and steer his craft”. These anonymous “purists” seem to have been unaware that the Wright Model A aircraft was controllable and coming into wide use in America and Europe and that Defries was a trained pilot, having been taught to fly at Cannes in France and he then added a brief flight time testing The Stella at Juvisy outside of Paris. By modern standard his flight time was minimal, but in 1909 he had enough to become an instructor! That he controlled his aircraft should not be in doubt. He took it off, maintained straight and level flight, albeit briefly, and landed safely, at least on his first flight. His crash landing on his second flight demonstrated what a momentary lack of attention could cause while flying a Wright Model A.

First Powered Flight in Australia- Episode 2

Published by Ian Debenham 5 Comments Tags: , , , .

stella1

Colin Defries and the first powered flight in Australia

Just four days after George made the first free heavier-than-air flight in the glider at Narrabeen, a young Englishman, Colin Defries left the ground in a Wright Model A, that he had named The Stella after his new wife, at Victoria Park race course south of Sydney. He flew straight and level at a height of about 20 feet (6.1 metres) for a distance of 115 yards (105.2 metres) and the watching crowd of 150, according to the reporter from The Sydney Morning Herald, was thrilled.

Defries’s flight was part of a “Flying Fortnight” organised by J&N Tait. Defries was to demonstrate the new ‘art’ of flying to audiences in Sydney before moving on to other capital cities for further demonstrations. Unfortunately, things weren’t going to plan for the Taits. The “Flying Fortnight” was supposed to begin on Saturday December 4 starting at 3pm, but adverse weather conditions prevented flight that day. Instead, Defries first had the Wright towed behind a car for the spectators and then started the engine and made several fast taxi runs around the course. A collision with a pile of timber hidden in the grass damaged The Stella and stopped any further demonstrations that day. It was not until the 9th that both weather conditions and aircraft were conducive to flight and Defries succeeded. The weather deteriorated again and Defries resorted to demonstrating the Wright by ground running. Again, fate stepped in and a rudder cable became tangled in the left propeller requiring a replacement propeller and rudder repairs. It was not until the last day of the “Flying Fortnight”, Saturday December 18th that the weather allowed another flight attempt. Unfortunately, the newspapers and the crowds had, for the most part, lost interest. Determined to fly before he and The Stella had to depart for their next engagement in Melbourne, Defries was at the race course early as were about 50 spectators and a reporter.

stella0

Defries’s flight was successful. According to the journalist, he achieved a distance of about 300 yards (274.3 metres) before his hat blew off and his effort to retrieve it caused The Stella to land heavily and ground loop creating significant damage. Despite the problems Defries, and the Taits, had encountered, Defries had made the first powered, controlled, sustained flight in Australia. Unfortunately for Defries, history was not going to treat him kindly.