Lainie Anderson: Adelaide Airport’s expansion is great news for SA – but what about Ross and Keith Smith’s famous Vickers Vimy plane?

ONE of aviation’s most famous aircraft, Keith and Ross Smith’s Vickers Vimy, has been ignored in Adelaide Airport’s expansion, writes Lainie Anderson.

Aviation historian Nigel Daw with the Vickers Vimy at Adelaide Airport.

• Podcast: The incredible story of brothers Ross and Keith Smith
• Vickers Vimy plane should be on display at Adelaide Airport plaza

AS a child, Andy Thomas was enthralled by the Vickers Vimy aircraft that sat outside the old airport terminal in Adelaide.

Like many of us in those days, he’d peer through the glass and marvel that, in 1919, South Australian brothers Ross and Keith Smith flew this weird, wonderful biplane all the way from England to Australia.

So when he became a NASA astronaut, he made a point of taking the Smith brothers’ pilot wings – the metal badges they’d earned as World War I aviators – on his first flight aboard the space shuttle Endeavour in 1996.

It was his way of introducing a new generation of kids to a pair of heroes who’d become lost to history.

It’s funny how the world works.

While Dr Thomas was home in SA this week, Adelaide Airport Ltd announced a $165 million expansion of the Adelaide Airport terminal.

The construction project looks fantastic. It will create hundreds of jobs and will help to attract major new airlines and visitors from around the world to our beautiful city.

The problem is there was no mention of the Vickers Vimy that inspired Andy Thomas – and so many other South Australians.

For now, the plane will stay put, hidden behind huge screens in its 1950s hangar out the back of the airport (albeit with new signage and a video for those who care to stop on the walk from the long-term car park).

However, Adelaide Airport Ltd says it recognises the plane is a “treasured national asset and we take our obligations as the custodian of the historical aircraft very seriously”.

They’re working on a business case, seeking the support of the state and federal governments for an equal funding contribution to allow for the relocation of the Vickers Vimy into the main terminal precinct.

They say the new expansion design includes the flexibility to make this happen – and they hope to have some good news as the centenary of the epic flight approaches in 2019.

As Andy Thomas says: “Just imagine what a striking display it would make in the main part of the airport, so that all the visitors could realise what four courageous South Australians did all those years ago.”

And surely the symbolism of this incredible aircraft – now considered by international historians as one of the most important aviation artefacts on the planet – isn’t lost on our Liberal State and Federal Governments as they push ahead with plans to tap into the $400 billion global space industry.

The space race is a contest of ideas, entrepreneurship and resilience – it’s about breaking down barriers and taking huge risks to make giant leaps.

There’s no finer symbol of this endeavour than the Vickers Vimy that carried the Smith boys and their resourceful mechanics, Wally Shiers and Jim Bennett, across the globe 99 years ago.

Those men led the way in the skies, in a fabric-covered plane with no cockpits and little more than a compass for navigation – and, 50 years later, landed on the moon.

As we blast into the space race, let’s give the aircraft and this incredible SA story the prominence it deserves.

Let’s get the plane – and the beautiful John Dowie sculpture of the four aviators beside it – moved to a show-stopping new location in the heart of the airport terminal.

And let’s inspire a whole new generation of kids to say: “If they could that, I can do anything.”

If you’d like to stay up to date with events planned to celebrate the centenary of the Smith brothers’ epic flight next year, enter your details at epicflightcentenary.com.au

AND ANOTHER THING ...

I didn’t think I could laugh harder this week than hearing US President Donald Trump talking about North Korea’s potential as a tourism destination. “They have great beaches,” he said during a press conference after his historic meeting in Singapore with Kim Jong-un.

“You see that whenever they’re exploding their cannons into the ocean. I said, ‘Boy, look at that view. Wouldn’t that make a great condo?’ ” Only Donald Trump would look at a missile and see a real estate opportunity.

But the he was trumped in the laughter stakes this week by the performance of Adelaide cabaret artist Hans, on America’s Got Talent. It was the most joyful thing I’ve seen this year.