Tim Lloyd: Push to honour Vickers Vimy flown by Ross and Keith Smith finally gaining pace

The push to preserve one of Australia’s most important item in Australian aviation is finally gaining ground, says Tim Lloyd.

Astronaut Andy Thomas with the Vickers Vimy Aircraft in the hangar at Adelaide Airport.

The Vickers Vimy flown by Ross and Keith Smith and his crew from London in 1919 is considered the most important heritage item in Australian aviation.

But almost 100 years after its historic flight, the plane is largely forgotten, and even its heroic aviators struggle to be recognised at the level afforded many other Australian pioneers.

The rallying cry for the plane and its remarkable history to be fully recognised in the centenary of its flight next year has been answered by no less than astronaut Andy Thomas and retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston.

Both were in Adelaide last week to become patrons of the campaign to see the plane moved from its now obscure housing in a former carpark at Adelaide Airport to a prominent and properly curated site.

Angus Houston made the case by giving insights into the character of Ross Smith, quoting from another great adventurer, Lawrence of Arabia (T.E. Lawrence), who describes a daredevil Ross Smith and their work together in his 1926 autobiographical account Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

“He was an Anzac, a Light Horseman,” Sir Angus said.

“He won a Military Cross and bar. No mean feat.

“He went on to became an airman, and won a Distinguished Flying Cross and two bars. That’s almost unheard of.”

Sir Angus pointed out that two of Ross Smith’s fellow aviators in No. 1 Squadron of the Australian Flying Corps, Paul McGuinness and Hudson Fysh, were to be particularly influenced by the Vickers Vimy flight to Australia.

“They had an interest in the great race and they drove from Brisbane to Darwin in a battered old pick-up to look for a suitable landing for the plane,” he said.

During the long and rough trip to Darwin, the two convinced themselves there would be room for civil aviation in Australia.

“As a consequence to that, they went back to Queensland and set up the Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service,” Sir Angus said.

It would take another 15 years of local operations but in 1934, Qantas and Britain’s Imperial Airlines linked up in Singapore to make it possible for a passenger to fly from Brisbane to London.

Sir Angus spoke at the Sir Ross and Sir Keith Smith Memorial Dinner, organised by the Adelaide branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

It has set in motion the campaign to give more recognition of the plane and the men who flew it.

The campaign is spearheaded by radio personality and Sunday Mail columnist Lainie Anderson, who has a book on the epic flight due out next year, after receiving a Churchill Fellowship to research the subject in 2016.