Heroic aviators Ross and Keith Smith raced their way into history by flying from London to Darwin

IT takes about 18 hours to fly from London to Darwin. But when Ross and Keith Smith flew in 1919, it took them almost 28 days.

**This picture has a scanned reverse - see associated content at the bottom of the details window** In 1919 Australian PM Billy Hughes announced an air race with a prize of 10,000 pounds for the first machine to fly from London to Australia in 30 days or less. Keith and Ross Smith completed the flight from Hounslow to Darwin in 27 days 20 hours.

IT takes about 18 hours to fly from London to Darwin.

But when Ross and Keith Smith landed in Darwin to win the 1919 England-Australia air race it took them almost 28 days. It was an event that changed Australia forever.

December 10 marks the 95th anniversary of the arrival of the first aircraft into Darwin and the Fannie Bay History and Heritage Society will mark the event with a ceremony at Ross Smith memorial in Fannie Bay.

The Vickers Vimy aircraft used by Sir Keith and Sir Ross Smith to fly to Darwin

The society’s Fiona Douglas said the ceremony would take place at 3.40pm, about the same time the Smith brothers’ Vickers Vimy biplane lumbered from the wet season skies to touch down.

“It was the flight that changed world, particularly from an Australian point of view,” Ms Douglas said.

“Without air travel, Australia would have been six weeks away from anywhere.”

In reaching Darwin the Smith brothers and crew members Jim Bennett and Wally Shiers covered 18,250km at an average speed of just 137km/h, compared with the 800km/h of today’s passenger planes.

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But the pioneering nature of early aviation captured the public’s imagination. And the response of Darwin residents to the arrival of the Smith brothers was proof of that.

When their plane touched down at the recently completed Darwin aerodrome, almost the entire population of the town – about 2000 people – turned out to welcome the aviators. Prisoners from the nearby Fannie Bay Jail had cleared the scrub for the airstrip on the site of what is today Ross Smith Ave.

The were a series of testing periods during the trip as the crew pushed their converted WWI bomber to Darwin.

At one stage the plane became bogged in Surabaya in Indonesia. “The local governor got people to dismantle their huts to make an airstrip,” Ms Douglas said.

Their arrival in Darwin won the Smith brothers, Bennett and Shiers a £10,000 prize ­offered by the Australian government.

The Smith brothers and one of their crew continue to be remembered in Darwin. Apart from Ross Smith Ave, there is also Keith Lane in Fannie Bay and Shiers St in the Narrows.